The Great Romantic
by MogtheGnome
Summary: What are the odds that giving someone a gift would end up cascading into THIS kind of reaction? Probably pretty low... But this way is funnier.
1. Chapter 1

The Great Romantic

Adapted from an Idea by Finbar

Chapter 1

The battle was over.

Gatoh was dead, throat cut and body tossed off the bridge.

The boat bearing the thugs had departed, taking the few survivors with it.

And surrounded by the bodies of enemies he slew lay Zabuza, dying.

But he wasn't quite dead yet.

As the snow began to fall, Zabuza beckoned Naruto over to him.

"Look, kid... I gotta be straight with ya. I don't like you, nor do I want to do this. But it has to be done. Tradition, ya might say. Not only that, but a sword should always be used. Reach into my pocket and grab out the scroll there."

Naruto, kneeling down next to the dying missing-nin, complied. The scroll was covered in markings that he had never quite seen before. He quickly passed it off to Zabuza, confused about the whole situation.

"Ya see, kid, whenever a swordsman of the Mist loses his last fight, and is getting ready to move onto the next world, he has to give his sword to the person who bested them. Though you yourself didn't actually strike me down, out of all your team... You're the one who deserves it the most. Kakashi would never use it, and you're the only genin who shown that you knew what it meant to be a ninja."

As he spoke, Zabuza lit up with the last vestiges of his chakra, and activated the sealing matrix on the scroll. His sword, which had been resting against the scroll, looked like it got sucked into it by a vacuum.

"There... take it."

And with that, Zabuza expired.

Naruto stood up, holding the oddly small scroll.

'But... I don't know how to use a sword. What the hell am I going to do with this?'

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In Naruto's mind, a fierce argument raged.

'Sword! Swords are cool! Swords are awesome! Look at how cool I would look if I could use a huge ass sword! Sakura-chan would love me for SURE!'

On one side, Naruto thought the idea of becoming a swordsman to be a pretty nifty one. After all... He didn't have a really cool bloodline or anything, to make himself stand out... But everyone could know him because of his kickass swordsmanship! Plus, if Zabuza using water clones to make 10 more of him became that much deadlier... How effective would it be when Naruto made 100 clones?

On the other side, was Naruto's love of ninjutsu. He loved ninjutsu. There was nothing more kickass then someone waving their hands around, and then causing a fireball to appear! It was like that magician he saw back on his 6th birthday. The guy could pull rabbits out of hats! How cool was that? Maybe... If Naruto got good enough with ninjutsu, he could do the same thing to?

It was tough for Naruto to decide what he wanted to train in next- Swords or Ninjutsu.

So, as they traveled home from wave, all Naruto could do was pester Kakashi to train him. Unfortunately, Kakashi's reply killed Naruto's dream of being an awesome swordsman who could pull rabbits out of fireballs.

"It takes way too much training to become good with swords. Do you want to make that your only focus?"

In his head, Naruto could picture it. Ninjutsu, or Kenjutsu?

A chibi-Naruto appeared over his left shoulder.

"SWORDS! You have a kickass sword already! How hard can it be to learn to swing it around? You'll have mastered it in no time, and then Sakura-chan will like you! It's how those things work, I think.'

Naruto's smile grew, ready to reply to Kakashi in the affirmative for swords, when another chibi-Naruto appeared over his right shoulder.

"Screw swords! Ninjutsu is where it's at! You've seen the things that ninjutsu can do... Fireballs and lightning bolts and ice needles and all sorts of cool stuff!"

The argument was fierce... Which one would make him a cooler ninja?

As the rest of the team walked, no one even suspected a miniature war was going on around Naruto's head.

But... The Ninjutsu Naruto had used Kage Bunshin, while the Sword Naruto assaulted them all with his sword. It was a 5 minute miniature battle... But in the end, only one Naruto remained.

"Just think, Naruto! Sakura likes Sasuke, right? It's not because he can use a sword... It's because he has ninjutsu!"

And that made up Naruto's mind.

Unfortunately, Naruto was still in the mindset that Kakashi would eventually teach him SOME kickass ninjutsu.

After arriving back in Konoha, Naruto reached his apartment.

'Well... What am I going to do with you?'

He wanted to do something with the sword, though... It's what Zabuza would want.

'Well... I suppose I can give ya over to someone who DOES use swords? That's a good idea, I guess.'

He just needed to find someone who actually used swords, first.

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'Hmm... Do I even know anyone who actually fights with swords? Or seriously uses a weapon? Besides those random ANBU... they all have ninja-to.'

"Naruto! Pay attention! This is news you'd probably love to hear!"

Missions went on as usual, with Naruto still stumped on who he could give his sword to.

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei... what were you saying?"

"For those of us who weren't listening the first time I said it, I decided to nominate you three for the Chuunin exams."

'Chuunin exams? Hmm...'

Naruto didn't know much about the chuunin exams. But... It sounded exciting, right? Plus... Maybe...

"Sensei... Will there be lots of other teams from Konoha there?"

"Seeing as this year they are being held in Konoha, I'd guess yes."

'Score! I'm bound to find somebody who specializes in weapons SOMEWHERE in the exams.'

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'Hmm... Well, none of the old Academy class seems to be holding any actual weapons...'

It was before the first exam, with the Rookie Nine being reunited for the first time since they graduated.

Naruto spent a lot of time looking around, which some took to mean he was nervous.

That was rather far from the truth.

Indeed, Naruto was looking for somebody- ANYBODY- from Konoha who might be a weapons-user.

And he didn't find nary a one.

None had more then just some kunai or shuriken... Unless they were hiding their weapons in scrolls, too, none of them specialized in weaponry.

"I'd keep your voices down... this isn't some kind of fieldtrip, ya know?"

But Naruto was optimistic. He knew there'd be lots of opportunities for him to find a swordsman somewhere in the exam from Konoha. He just had to find them, is all.

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'Shit shit shit shit! Man, what I wouldn't do for that giant sword now that I've been swallowed by a snake! I could totally cut my way out of it if I had it!

'But I might as well go with what I'm good at...'

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

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'Well, if he was ever on the list before, Sasuke is definitely off it now. If he's stabbing himself in the leg with Kunai, who knows what he would do with Zabuza's sword?

'Guess I gotta go in there and save the day.'

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"Wait... Open both the scrolls at the same time."

As the scrolls unrolled, Naruto recognized them. Immediately after he recognized, he shouted out.

"Toss them away! They're summoning scrolls!"

POOF.

"Iruka-sensei?"

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'Sweet, a tournament! Heh... Now I'll find someone for sure!'

Of course, after thinking that... Naruto was in for some disappointment.

'Well, we've gone through a bunch of matches so far. I already knew Sasuke doesn't use weapons. Shino's too caught up with his bugs. That stretchy dude totally sucked. Sakura and Ino... Both of them don't seem to be the, uh, type, to use big ass swords. It has nothing to do with them completely lacking in, err, fighting skill.

'So, who's up next? That Tenten girl? She's the one on gejimayu's team, right?'

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Naruto was stunned.

'That was amazing! She pretty much solely used weapons! And even better... She didn't even seem to have a melee weapon yet.'

"Ye gods... She's perfect!"

Everyone watching turned to Naruto, who had accidentally exclaimed his last thought out loud, after watching Tenten fight solely using weaponry.

"Uhh... What are you all staring at?"

No one in the surrounding crowd knew what he was talking about. Most in the crowd, Temari included, naturally assumed the boy was talking about her, seeing as she won the fight.

But a few, like Neji and Hinata, noticed who he was staring at when he shouted.

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'Well, Kakashi told me to meet up with that closet pervert... But I have something more important to do first. Then I'll find the pervert, and make him train me! Let's see... I'll go visit Lee in the Hospital and ask him where she normally trains at!'

It was after the preliminaries, and Kakashi blowing him off.

'Stupid Kakashi... Man, I need to find someone to teach me how to use some ninjutsu. Hopefully the closet pervert will...'

Naruto made his way over to the hospital, searching for Lee's room.

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

'Well... Look's like I found the room.'

Naruto stepped in, and immediately turned away from the horrible vision before him. 

"Uhh... Can I talk to Lee for a second?"

"... Naruto? What are you doing here?"

Naruto had walked into what would usually be a rather odd scene, but was probably normal for the two involved.

Gai stood up, from where he had been hugging Lee, who was lying down on the hospital bed.

'Thank GOD that's over.'

"I just wanted to know where that Tenten girl on your team would be right now. I have a gift for her!"

'Yup... Zabuza said a sword should always be used! That's why I have to give it to someone who will use it!'

"... A gift? Well, Tenten should be out over at the training grounds around now... I'll give you directions."

'Naruto wants to give Tenten a gift, eh? Sounds like someone's Springtime of Youth is in full-bloom!'

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"Ok, Tenten, that'll be it for the day. I have to go and attend my duties at home now, anyway. I'll see you tom- What the hell are you doing here, loser?"

Just as Neji was finishing up his goodbyes to Tenten, who was gathering up all of her loose weapons, Naruto arrived onto the scene.

"Shut up, Neji. I'm not here to kick your ass. Yet."

"... Then what are you doing here?"

Tenten, who had gathered up all of her weapons using her wires, walked over to the two. She was curious about what the strange dead-last was doing here, as well.

As she spoke, Naruto quickly looked over at Tenten, and smiled. A huge, dazzling smile, that was almost, but not quite, on the order of Lee's. So it was pretty high up there.

"Here! I have this for you!"

Naruto quickly pulled out the scroll, and stuffed it into Tenten's hands.

"Use it well!"

With that, he ran away. With the way the sun was setting, though... it made him look like he was blushing.

Neji and Tenten looked at each other.

"Well... it looks sort of like one of my weapon-summoning scrolls... Only a heckuvalot fancier."

"You might as well open it up out here... He is infamous for pranks, so perhaps it would be better if whatever went off went off out here."

"Ok... OH HOLY CRAP!"

"... How did such an enormous sword fit into such a tiny scroll? Tenten... are you... crying?"

"Neji... This is one of the Seven Swords of Kirigakure. This is an honest to god sword of one of the Mist Swordsman. This... This is one of the best swords in the world! How did that guy get it?"

"... I have no clue."

"And why did he give it to me?"

"..."

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'Yup... That sword will go to good use. Now, to go find that closet-pervert...'

Naruto ran from the scene, leaving a stunned Neji and Tenten behind.

The setting sun caused the whole scene to be even more dramatic.

Word swiftly got around town (i.e. Gai started yelling about Naruto and Tenten's Springtime of Youth everywhere he went) that Naruto wanted to give Tenten some kind of gift.

When people actually SAW what the gift was... Well, most of them were confused.

It's hard to miss the girl carrying the Zanbato, with tears in her eyes, as she walks down the street, after all.

"I mean, I can understand she's a ninja girl and all... But when did kids change so much that if you wanted to tell a girl you're interested in her, you give her a sword? Whatever happened to flowers? Or Jewelery?"

Of course, it just so happened to be the members of Team 8 who heard that last conversation, prompting Kiba to loudly wonder at what kind of idiot gives a girl a sword to show her that they like her.

Nobody answered him, though a bunch of the adults looked at him funny.

After the team went their separate ways, Hinata went home... Only to encounter a frustrated Neji.

Who was, unfortunately for Hinata, venting his frustration out loud.

"Stupid Uzumaki... I bet you this is exactly why he gave Tenten that sword! He knew that she'd get too involved with training herself in how to use it, so she wouldn't be able to train with me! Argh, now I'm going to have to figure it out all on my own..."

'Naruto gave Tenten a sword? And didn't that old man say that boys give girls they like... swords?'

It would be an hour before a branch family member found the unconscious form of Hinata on the floor.

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So the month of training went. Naruto met Jiraiya, and learned about frog summoning. He didn't really think about Tenten at all, not really knowing the girl. He just hoped she did the sword justice, or something like that.

Tenten spent the entire month training, in learning how to use the sword. She knew it must have some kind of secret property... All the 7 Mist swords do. She just couldn't figure it out. But she did get a good handle on how to use it, though.

Neji was freaking pissed as hell the whole month, due to his lack of a training partner. He was unable to learn Kaiten, for that same reason. And he blamed it all on Naruto. He made it very clear to everyone he came across that he would get back at Naruto, too.

Unfortunately, he never really specified what he was going to get back at Naruto for. All he would ever talk about is Naruto giving Tenten that sword, and that it enraged him.

Most people took that to mean that Neji was also interested in Tenten, and that Naruto had stolen her from him. Rumors travel quickly in Konoha, and by the end of the month, the story had evolved into something out of a crappy romance novel.

And, oddly enough... Most people seemed to side with Naruto here. Because he was the one who gave Tenten a priceless gift, to try to win her love. Most people (i.e. the women of Konoha) saw that as an incredibly romantic gesture (Or perhaps just the Kunoichi of Konoha, as the civilian girls could appreciate the gesture, but they wanted it clear that they preferred jewelry), and that it must be Naruto's human side showing through. And that kind of thing should always be encouraged.

Tenten kept on wondering about all the weird looks people were giving her, and how a lot of random people she didn't know kept on asking her about Naruto. She didn't even know the guy! She for sure didn't know why he gave her the sword, much less how he got it.

Naruto was a puzzle to Tenten. She barely knew the guy. They hadn't ever even spoken. Then he, out of nowhere, gives her a priceless gift in the form of a sword, and proceeds to disappear. She didn't know what to think. She'd always been a no-nonsense, serious Kunoichi, not one of those love-struck fan girl types.

But now... She was pretty confused.

At first... It was weird, but she got most of her advice from a drunken Hinata.

She didn't quite know WHY Hinata was drunk so often lately, only that she was. Hinata also quite often stalked Tenten around, looking pretty angry. Or as angry as Hinata can get. So it was actually kind of cute, and fairly funny.

When Tenten would confront the drunken Hinata, Hinata would usually start mumbling stuff about Naruto. Hinata would say stuff about how he never gives up, and always keeps on trying, and usually she'd say something about how Tenten should see how long Naruto can go without stopping.

Well, Tenten never thought it was GOOD advice... Hinata just kept on telling her random things.

After a while of this going on... Tenten decided that she needed someone other then a drunken 12 year old to get advice from.

So, she hunted down Naruto's female teammate, one Haruno Sakura.

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At first, Tenten found it creepy that the townsfolk would watch her wherever she went. But, after a week of it, she got used to it, and ignored it.

So when her first conversation with Sakura was eavesdropped on by no less then 20 people, she didn't even notice.

"Hey, you're Sakura, right? Uzumaki Naruto's teammate?"

Sakura, who had been having lunch at a small luncheonette, sighed.

"Yeah... So, what did Naruto do to you? Interrupt your training? Steal your ramen? Play a prank on you? What?"

Sakura didn't really have much faith in Naruto, it seems.

"No, no, nothing like that! I just have a few questions... You know, like where he got THIS from?"

And, with that, Tenten removed Kubikiri Houchou from its scroll.

Sakura's eyes bugged out at first. She most definitely recognized THAT! She knew that Naruto had it... But she hadn't thought Naruto would give it away...

Sakura was hurt, a little... She knew Naruto decided that he would use ninjutsu over kenjutsu, and that he had been looking for someone to give the sword to... But he hadn't even offered it to her.

Suddenly, Sakura lost her appetite. But, she should at least answer that bit, err, girl's question.

Sakura didn't even question her sudden dislike of Tenten.

"Well, Naruto was given the sword by its previous owner Momochi Zabuza at the end of our mission in Wave Country. But, I have to go. Bye!"

Tenten could only look on in confusion as Sakura seemingly ran away.

Tenten wasn't an idiot... She could feel the sudden hostility that had built up in Sakura when she saw the sword. Hostility and... Jealousy?

Man, things were getting more and more confusing.

It didn't help that Hinata made an appearance right after that, to insult Sakura for her mistreatment of 'Naruto-kun'.

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Tenten and Neji's only interaction during the month of training also revolved Hinata, when Hiashi would send Neji out to find his missing daughter. Hiashi had yet to realize who had been stealing his Sake... but when he found out, there'd be hell to pay!

Neji was pragmatic. He also hated having his training interrupted. So, he usually hunted down and retrieved Hinata in the fastest, most efficient manner.

Neji would just find Hinata, pick her up, and walk away with her, usually without any warning.

He'd then carry her back to the Hyuuga Compound, seeing as Hinata was usually too drunk to walk.

He thought it was a perfectly reasonable way of handling the situation. Hinata clearly couldn't make it back herself, and probably wouldn't even want to. But, he had his own orders, and those orders were to bring Hinata back. And then he'd get to continue training so he could kick Uzumaki's ass even harder.

Unfortunately... the Village gossip vine took this the completely wrong way.

All they ever saw was an angry Neji carrying around a struggling Hinata.

The plot thickened... Now, Neji was somehow getting back at Tenten and Naruto by kidnapping his cousin, to have his way with her?

Lots of people in the village were aware of the Hyuuga girls infatuation with Naruto (or they were after they heard Hinata drunkenly mumble about it as she wandered around town), so it seemed obvious to them that Neji was trying to get back at Naruto for stealing his (Neji's) woman.

To them, it seemed as if Neji was a villain, trying to break apart the lovers for his own selfish gain. And, when that didn't work... He resorted to trying to invoke jealousy to break the two apart.

Sure, a sick jealousy involving incest... But jealousy all the same.

Word spread around even more, of Naruto's fantastic present to Gai's kunoichi, and of all the reactions thereof. Even Sakura's reaction to Tenten was whispered about, because most people knew that it was Sakura who Naruto liked. The fact that Sakura seemed to react so badly to Tenten's presence boded ill for both Naruto and Tenten.

Tenten had a vague idea about the rumors, but didn't pay them much mind because she was training with her newest, and by far coolest, weapon.

Naruto? He didn't have a clue.

But the townsfolk, and soon growing numbers of ninjas... They knew. Or thought they did.

Oh, what tangled webs we weave.

Author's Notes: The story was taken from an idea by Finbar, and I posted the original version of this chapter in my 'One shots and Ideas' story. However, I recently decided to dust it off, and wrote a second chapter.

Then someone told me that I should expand this and make it something other then crack!humor… and I agreed. This IS a good plot bunny… It deserved more then just cracky humor.

So, I expanded it. Made it better. Faster. Stronger. More powerful a story then it had ever been before!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The day of the finals arrived. After training with Jiraiya, Naruto felt like he had a darn good chance of beating Neji.

It'd been a long month, but he felt it was worth it.

He hadn't been in the village very much... In fact, he had barely been in Konoha at all. He had spent time AROUND it, sure, but he rarely went into Konoha proper.

'Man, this is what I'm talking about! Just gimme a hat, and I could totally pull a frog from it! Not quite as impressive as rabbits, sure... But I'll take what I can get.'

Yeah... Naruto was pleased. Training with Jiraiya, while in some ways a hassle, was totally worth it.

'There's no way Sakura-chan won't fall in love with me once she sees my mad ninjutsu skills!'

Naruto's thoughts strayed to Sakura, as they often did. But it didn't last, as he had other things to focus on.

'I'm going to kick Neji's ass so hard for what he did to Hinata! Then I'm gonna pass the chuunin exam, dattebayo!'

But, as he wandered through town, he began to notice something was different.

'That's odd... Everyone seems to be whispering and pointing as I go by. Normally, they just ignore me... Hey, did that woman just smile at me? What the hell's going on???'

Naruto was very pleasantly surprised... He thought he'd have to become Hokage before everyone decided to acknowledge him!

Naruto felt that his whole day had just gotten better.

'Man, maybe they all know about my awesome ninjutsu skills now, too?'

Naruto, being Naruto, began to smile back, and made his way to the arena, both confused and elated.

He had been rather nervous about fighting Neji... But somehow, if everyone seemed so happy to see him... He knew he would win!

Then the second abnormal thing of the day happened.

"Na-Na-Naruto-hic-kun..."

Naruto stopped, and turned around.

There, leaning against the side of a building, stood Hyuuga Hinata.

'Wait... She's not leaning... She's clutching onto it for dear life!'

"Hinata?? What are you doing here? Are you... drunk?"

Naruto talked as loudly as he usually did, his voice carrying over the surrounding area. He didn't even notice that half of the people around him immediately stopped, and turned to see what was going to happen next in the village's most current drama.

"N-n-n-yes, Naruto-kun."

"You shouldn't drink, Hinata... We're way too young for that!"

Hinata hung her head, having discovered that she had apparently disappointed Naruto.

The other half of the crowd, the one that hadn't initially turned, did so when they heard Naruto shout 'We're too young for that!'. That one was gonna create some new rumors, for sure.

"Come on, Hinata... I'm sure your family wouldn't approve of that!"

"So-so-sorry, Naruto-kun. I just... I saw Ten-hic-ten and-"

"Tenten? Oh, is she practicing with the sword I gave her? That's good!"

The murmurs of the crowd grew... Apparently Naruto hadn't known that Tenten had accepted his gift! Even stranger... It seemed as if Naruto was completely unaware of the Hyuuga girl's affection...

"But its ok, Hinata... I'll beat Neji up, and show him that it isn't all about fate! I gotta go, though... The third exam starts soon!"

And with that, Naruto ran off, leaving Hinata staring off at him as he ran away, before drunkenly stumbling after him.

And the crowd... They went to tell everyone the latest news.

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"It is fate that you will lose this match, Uzumaki. Not only am I a genius and you a dead-last... But you went and made it personal when you gave Tenten that sword!"

Naruto and Neji stood, facing off, in the arena.

"What does me giving Tenten a sword have to do with anything? What, you jealous or something? I ain't giving no sword to you, that's for sure!"

The crowd buzzed with whispers after that... Did Naruto just call Neji gay? Was Neji acting out just because HE wanted Naruto's interest, and saw Hinata actually as competition instead of potential lover?

There was much squeeing from fan girls at this thought.

"Of course not! But since you gave her that sword, she hasn't been around to help ME! And because of that... well, you'll pay! Fate has ordained it so... Now I just need to finish it."

Luckily, the wish of the fan girls was swiftly killed and replaced back with the rivalry over Tenten's favor.

And with that, the first match began.

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"Yeah, I know what it feels like to have a seal like that... So what of it?"

Everyone sat on the edge of their seats as the match grew more and more interesting.

Even without the Kaiten, Neji was a highly formidable fighter. Naruto's clones would get destroyed, and he would create more. The fight itself was getting kind of repetitive... but no one cared.

No, everyone was listening to the dialogue.

The violence was interspersed in with random arguments over fate, and whether Naruto could really understand what Neji's life was like. 

Most of the crowd found that highly ironic.

And then... After Neji utilized the Hakke Rokujûyon Shô... A lot of people were overjoyed.

Because apparently... A lot of the women's thoughts were correct. Naruto did exist past the Kyuubi. He existed DESPITE the Kyuubi. He tried his damndest to succeed... and it looked like he would.

By Naruto's own words, he had a difficult life, but one that he existed to spite his 'fate', instead of to live up to it.

It scared a lot of people... When Naruto had gotten up after the Hakke Rokujûyon Shô, and seemingly called up the Kyuubi's chakra to reopen his tenketsu... But then he proved his own humanity, with one simple line.

Neji didn't stand a chance.

"Winner... Uzumaki Naruto."

The rest of the fights continued, with Sasuke not showing up, Kankurou forfeiting, and Shikamaru giving up... But the thing most people dwelled on was Naruto's words to Neji.

It seemed as if there was much more going on then any of them had guessed... But most resolved to thank that Tenten girl for whatever she had done to make sure Naruto stayed human.

And it would only get worse when word of Naruto and Hinata's encounter before the exams got spread around.

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Something different happened this time around, after Kabuto utilized his genjutsu.

For, you see... After Sakura woke up Naruto, the first thing he saw was the glowing purple box on top of one of the building... With the Sandaime fighting within.

So, instead of staying around to await Kakashi's orders, he immediately rushed over in that direction, eager to help save his faux-grandfather's life.

Kakashi, watching him run away, sighed. He turned to one of the other genin present, as he felt he needed someone to replace Naruto on his little team to save Sasuke from his own stupidity.

"You... Gai's girl... Tenten. Go with Sakura and Shikamaru and..."

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Naruto arrived on top of the building, where 4 ANBU sat, pondering the dilemma presented by the barrier.

"What the hell? Why aren't you helping out?"

The lead ANBU pointed at the barrier.

"That keeps us out, kid. Now run along and go help fight-"

But Naruto didn't give up that easily.

No, Naruto stood, and pondered the barrier for a minute.

Then he ran up to the barrier, and smashed a hole in the floor right next to one of the corners.

Naruto dropped in the hole, and a moment later, the Sound-nin maintaining that corner cried out, and fell in a hole too.

The barrier, no longer being supported by all 4 corners, collapsed.

Naruto hopped out from the hole, looked at the stunned ANBU, and said, "Man... You guys really need to think these things through!"

With that, he turned and ran straight towards Sarutobi... Who was currently fighting Orochimaru, and two other guys who looked strangely familiar, wielding a huge staff.

'Well, I might as well even the odds!'

Naruto knew what he had to do.

It was time for him to utilize his super-cool ninjutsu!

Not even thinking about what could possibly be stupid about doing this, Naruto leapt high up into the air, over the fight.

As he came down, directly above Orochimaru he began working hand seals.

As he finished, he called out the name of the technique.

"KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU!"

Pouring as much chakra as he had into it... Naruto summoned forth Gamabunta.

Who appeared directly above Orochimaru.

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It was an odd scene after that...

"No one... No one could have survived THAT."

The entire building they had been standing on had been crushed by the enormous toad falling.

All the fighters, aside from Orochimaru, had managed to jump up and off the collapsing building.

Now the Hokage, Naruto, the four ANBU, and the Sound 4 just stood there, in front of Gamabunta, who was confused as all hell as to what he was doing here.

And there, under one of Gamabunta's feet, was a hand sticking out, holding a sword.

Naruto, thinking back to the story that Zabuza had told him. He immediately decided that the sword was his, because he had killed the guy... Not realizing that was only a Kiri tradition.

So as the Sound 4, realizing the situation and their own drained chakra from maintaining the shield, surrendered, Naruto walked over and picked up the sword.

"Heh... Now, what am I going to do with YOU?"

However, it was at this moment that everyone felt a chilling chakra, and saw an enormous figure rising out of the woods a little ways away.

The Hokage, realizing what was going on, pointed to one of the ANBU.

"Tenzou... Go take care of that."

Gamabunta finally decided to say something.

"What the hell am I doing here... AND WHAT THE HELL IS SHUKAKU DOING OVER THERE!?"

Naruto, seeing the giant sand demon, shouted up to his summon, even as he leapt up his body in an effort to reach his head.

"Hey, Gamabunta... We're gonna go fight him! He's threatening Konoha!"

"Kid... You're going to owe me so much Sake for this..."

Gamabunta hopped off, in the same direction Tenzou had... towards the giant sand demon.

But... Out of the two... The only one the villagers saw was Naruto, riding off to battle in a manner so reminiscent of their greatest hero. 

And even MORE rumors began to spread.

And Sarutobi stood, where he could now see Orochimaru's crushed corpse.

"I always thought it would be more... Climactic, then that. But I'll take what I can get."

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"WHO WILL FEED MOTHER! WHO WILL I KILL NEXT!?"

The fight had gone pretty poorly over here. Sasuke was drained of his chakra, hiding in a tree.

Sakura was there with him, holding him up.

Tenten was on the ground, drained of her own chakra, resting on the enormous blade of Kubikiri Houcho. She had been the last foe that had fought Gaara, before he managed to complete his monstrous transformation. It was only the presence of said sword that had let her block any of his attacks at all, its wide blade easily deflecting his sand shuriken, and letting her deflect attacks from larger pieces of sand.

But, even then, she was easily outclassed, and was only barely standing.

Gaara, enraged, had spent the whole fight flailing around, looking for Sasuke to kill him. But now he had decided that if Sasuke wasn't going to come out, he might as well just go ahead and let Mother out to play.

That is, until Gamabunta arrived, with Naruto on top... And a random ANBU, too.

Tenten had never been so happy to see anyone in her life.

It was like watching a crappy Kaiju movie, at first. Gamabunta shot a water ball at Shukaku, and Shukaku dodged and fought back with an air-blast.

Then Gamabunta drew its sword, and stabbed the Shukaku... Right as the ANBU began a seal sequence.

From a distance, it looked like somehow Gamabunta had defeated Shukaku... But really, it was the ANBU Tenzou, using the abilities that Orochimaru had spliced into him, to force the demonic chakra down.

Not that any of the observers saw that.

Gaara fell to the earth, with Naruto jumping down after him.

Naruto began to speak with the downed Gaara, who was apparently shocked that he lost.

"I told you before... You're just like me. I just decided that there are people and things worth fighting for, that the world isn't just about me."

As Gaara fell silent, Temari and Kankurou approached.

Temari recognized Naruto, a little, from her first encounter with him before the exams, and from him evidently calling her 'perfect' after her match.

Sakura and Sasuke also jumped down from their tree, stunned at seeing Naruto ride in on the huge toad. Being Konoha-nin, they knew who else had the toad summons.

Naruto, still holding the Kusanagi blade, looked around.

His eyes first stopped on Temari and Kankurou. Just as Temari opened her mouth to say something, Naruto turned away.

Naruto kept on looking, and saw Sasuke and Sakura. Just as he was about to saying something to Sakura though... He saw Tenten resting against Kibukiri Houcho right behind them.

His face lit up.

'Man, does she have good timing or what?'

"Hey, it's Tenten! Just the person I wanted to see! Oooh, you even were using Zabuza's sword! That's perfect! See... I just got this new sword, and I was wondering..."

Both Sakura and Temari looked awestruck, for similar reasons.

Sakura for having Naruto ignore her for ANYTHING (besides ramen that is). Temari for being so easily dismissed by any guy, much less one that seemed to compliment her before.

Kankurou was amused by his sisters' reaction, more then anything else, before heading over to Gaara's side.

Sasuke just stood there, jealously.

Even as Naruto apparently fussed over Tenten, Kankurou brought his puppet to bear, ready to fight. Temari, remembering herself, reached for her fan.

"No... We will not fight. Let's... Just go."

Tenzou stood, forgotten by the children, ready to strike down Gaara as he lay in a moment of weakness... That is, until, he received a message from the Hokage via messenger pigeon to let Gaara go.

And Tenten?

Tenten stood, in even greater bemused wonder, looking at her newest sword.

"Naruto... This sword... Where did you get this sword?"

"Oh, well, you know that guy Orochimaru? Well, he was attacking the Hokage, and so I killed him. And since I killed him, I took his sword! But, ya know..."

Naruto left unsaid that he didn't actually know HOW to use a sword.

Tenten thought that he was implying that he wanted to give it to HER.

"I... I don't know what to say, Naruto. The Kusanagi blade is-"

"Wait, idiot! What the hell are you saying, that you killed Orochimaru? He was an S-Rank missing nin!"

Sasuke couldn't believe that Naruto was trying to claim that he had killed one of the strongest ninjas in the world? Preposterous!

"Did too, Sasuke! And that's his sword!"

"Hn. Like anyone is going to believe THAT."

Tenten arose, holding the sword.

"Well... One of the things people say about the Kusanagi blade is that it can cut through anything..."

She walked over to the nearest tree, and placed the edge of the blade against... and slowly moved against the tree.

All the genin watched in awe as the tree was cut, cleanly through.

Tenten's eyes welled up. At first, she hadn't quite believed it either. But now... This guy had given her a SECOND priceless sword?

'That... My god, and this is just the way he shows he likes me? What would he give me if he was asking me to MARRY him?'

Sakura, knowing of the rumors... Well, she was a little jealous. Not because someone else had Naruto's interest (No! Of course not! We love Sasuke, Shannaro!), but because if she had a priceless sword, then she was sure she could attract Sasuke's interest!

Then two things happened simultaneously.

First, Tenten decided that Naruto deserved a hug. Nothing more then that (because she didn't want Naruto to think that all he had to do to get into her pants was kill super-ninjas and steal their weapons!), but it was a nice hug nonetheless.

Second... Jiraiya arrived.

"Well! It looks my student takes after me more then I thought! I was going to take you out drinking, for killing Orochimaru and all... But I think this is better! What would I call it... Icha Icha Swords?"

Naruto's confusion over being hugged by Tenten quickly boiled over into anger at Jiraiya.

"Shut up, Ero-sennin! If you ever write one of your pervert books about me, I'll kill you!"

Tenten, Sakura, and Sasuke could only stare bewildered as Jiraiya ran off, laughing, with an enraged Naruto in chase.

Author's Notes: And here's chapter two, fleshed out and all pretty-like. Tenten receives her second sword, and now starts to actually consider that the rumors may be true, and that Naruto really IS professing his love for her. But how does she feel about that?

Sakura starts feeling jealous (but won't admit it), and Hinata is scheming on how to win Naruto herself. Plus… How will everyone else who knows Naruto react?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Ok, Naruto... Let's call it quits for the night."

Out in the woods near Konoha, Naruto and Jiraiya finished a training session.

At Naruto's request, Jiraiya continued to teach him 'cool ninjutsu'... mainly as an artifice to keep him under watch, AND to ensure that he would be strong enough in case Akatsuki made their move.

Of course, it helped that Naruto had finally slain his traitorous teammate three days before.

So, Jiraiya woke Naruto up each morning, took him out to the woods, and continued to train him.

Jiraiya was more then a little impressed by Naruto's dedication to improving himself, though that was balanced out with his constant demanding to be taught 'cool jutsus'.

This time, though... Naruto had managed to exhaust himself a little bit earlier then usual. They HAD been working on a more advanced chakra control exercise, one that would, if mastered, probably let Naruto create half again as many Kage Bunshin then he already could.

"Come on, Ero-sennin! We still have some more daylight... Teach me something else!"

"You're too tired to learn any ninja skill right now, idiot! You need to rest to regain some chakra!"

Naruto's desire to learn pushed Jiraiya to his wits end, to be honest. If it wasn't for a combination of factors, Jiraiya would probably have already left to go peeping. Dealing with Naruto when he wasn't actually teaching him something was very frustrating.

Besides... For his latest book, Jiraiya wanted Naruto to spend some time doing something OTHER then training, just so he could observe the kid interact with that Tenten girl.

Something that Naruto always looked confused about whenever Jiraiya brought it up.

"Well, teach me something else! I just need to learn something to make me cooler then Sasuke!"

'He still needs to be 'cooler then Sasuke'? Didn't he take out one of the most dangerous ninja in the world? Jeez... What could he possibly be competing with the little Uchiha over?'

The stupid argument continued a little bit longer, as Jiraiya weighed his options.

'I can't really teach him how to peep... He'd just ruin it for me and rat me out or something. But what else could I show him that would shut him up?'

"Fine, fine... Let me look through my pack and see if I have anything else to teach you. I wasn't planning on anything like this, so don't get your hopes up."

Stalling to give himself time to think, Jiraiya began pawing through some stuff he carried around with him.

He didn't carry much around, just useful supplies and a few trinkets from his youth.

'Heh... The panties of the daughter of the Fire daimyo... The mailing address to the Wind Daimyo's sister... The deck of cards that we used when me and Orochimaru finally convinced Tsunade to play strip poker... Hmm... That could work.'

A metaphorical light bulb appeared over Jiraiya's head. Teaching Naruto to gamble would both keep the kid occupied, as well as giving him another opportunity to empty out the boy's wallet.

Plus, it might even shut him up for a bit.

Jiraiya, having a game plan, turned around to face Naruto.

"Seeing as you're too tired to work out anything physically... I'll teach ya a more mental game. It'll help you hone your lie detection skills, you're own ability to lie... And chicks dig guys who are good at poker. So, uh, I guess that qualifies it as being really cool.

"I'm gonna teach you how to play Poker."

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"Kakashi, I'm telling ya, he's a natural! I've never seen anyone as lucky as him! Hell, last night alone caused me to have to teach him 5 new 'kickass jutsus', as well as 15 meals at Ichiraku! And you've seen how much he eats!"

The next day, Jiraiya had sought out Kakashi, to talk with him about Naruto's absurd gambling luck.

Jiraiya, after explaining the basic rules of poker, taught Naruto a common version of Hold 'em poker.

And proceeded to get his ass handed to him.

Every hand where Jiraiya thought he might have something, Naruto had him beat.

Hell, he had never seen anyone actually get a Royal Flush without cheating before... And Naruto got TWO of them last night alone!

Either Naruto was the luckiest kid around, or the best person Jiraiya had ever met at slight of hand.

"While that's nice and all, Jiraiya... You aren't really well known for your amazing gambling skills yourself. You're no Tsunade or anything... But you aren't that great. And why are you telling me this all again?"

Kakashi, though... Kakashi didn't believe it.

Kakashi was a fan of card games himself, as many ninjas were. It was a way to test essential ninja skills without actually putting yourself in a life-threatening situation.

Also, you could pretty easily supplement your income if you were good enough.

And Kakashi was more then good enough. He was among the best of the Jounin, only consistently losing to a few of the Torture and Interrogation people. But nobody beat them, except for Yamanakas. And frankly, its harder for them NOT to cheat when it comes to games like poker.

"Because I want to take him with me to Tanzuki Gai and win me some money, that's why!"

"Not happening, Jiraiya... You know who's after him. You know the risks. I don't think it could possibly be worth it to do this."

Jiraya was not so easily dissuaded, though. He KNEW this would be a good idea. It would give him nice filler work for his story, for what Naruto did in his off time, as well as gave him a large chance of making money. Just sponsor the boy by paying for his games, and reap the rewards.

The plan practically couldn't fail.

But the Hokage had told him that he would need Kakashi's permission to take his genin out. So first... He had to convince Kakashi that this was a good idea.

Jiraiya, eyes gleaming and mouth smirking, offered unto Kakashi a challenge he could not refuse.

"How about this, then... You and Naruto play some poker. If he wins, you let me take him out to gamble with. If YOU win... I'll send you preview copies of the next Icha Icha that comes out."

As Jiraiya started his offer, Kakashi frowned. It was practically giving up right there, having a boy who practically wore his heart on his sleeve go up against a man who NEVER showed any of his real emotions in a game based heavily on reading people? Hell, Kakashi knew that Naruto would never have the head for the math required to be good at the game without reading people. This was like sticking a fish in a barrel, and telling Kakashi to shoot it.

But then... Jiraiya baited his hook.

And Kakashi didn't even think that maybe HE was the fish waiting to be caught. Because there was no way he would turn down the chance for free Icha Icha.

"DEAL!"

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The scene was a strange one, at Ichiraku's Ramen Bar.

Sitting at a table that was set out in front of the bar were Kakashi and Naruto.

Surrounding the two were Sakura and Sasuke, Jiraiya, and numerous villagers who were enjoying the spectacle.

Most in the audience were stunned. Sasuke didn't even pretend to hide it, standing behind Kakashi with his mouth gaping open.

He hadn't moved in the past five minutes.

Sakura, on the other hand, was standing behind Naruto. Hell, she was actually cheering him on! She was happy to see Kakashi finally getting payback for all those times he was late! And, while she wouldn't admit it... She was happy that Naruto was the one making him pay.

Naruto's face was glowing with pleasure, as he counted out another stack of chips that just became his. Not only were the villagers cheering him on, not only was Jiraiya praising him... But Sakura was cheering! For him! This was pretty much one of the best days of his life!

"Well, Kakashi-sensei? Ready to admit defeat?"

"NEVER! Shit... What can I put up for chips, though?"

Kakashi was stumped. There was no way this was happening. No effing way.

The game was going pretty poorly for Kakashi... Naruto had about 4/5 of the chips, as well as a paper that guaranteed him training until mastery of form and shape manipulation.

He wasn't going to lose the match to a genin, much less one with as little emotional control as Naruto. His pride refused it!

The next hand was dealt out, and Kakashi put up the ante, which took up most of the rest of his chips. So, if he wanted to win... He needed to bring something else to the table.

'I refuse to put up my Icha Icha, on the off chance I don't win this all back! But I need this money... I don't get a paycheck until next Tuesday! Shit, what do I have that Naruto might want? There's always dad's-'

"How about putting up a day without your mask for one stack of these chips?"

Kakashi reached a decision. If Gai couldn't get him to take off his mask, no one could.

However... You had to be a blind idiot not to see what Naruto was up to lately.

He was actually incredibly proud of Naruto, who seemed to finally move on from his old crush, to a new one. Even more so, he showed his affection in true ninja fashion- Killing absurdly overpowered ninjas, taking their swords, and giving them to his One True Love.

The fact that Jiraiya had already announced that he was going to turn it into the next volume of Icha Icha didn't have anything to do with it. Nope. None at all.

So... That left Kakashi with an option to put on the table something he, frankly, didn't care that much about to begin with.

But it was something that Naruto would probably put great stock into.

And, seeing his hand against what had just come out on the flop, Kakashi felt it was worth the risk.

"... No. Not happening, Naruto. But how about this?"

Even as Kakashi began speaking, new people arrived at the game.

The crowd had been slowly growing the whole time, with new people arriving every hand. Teams 8 and 10 were already there with their jounin, though Kurenai was more then a little put out to be present. She had been working on drying out Hinata, and removing her new addiction from her system, and she just knew that anything involving Naruto would cause Hinata to backslide.

However... A new team had arrived on the scene. Team Gai just showed up, because anyone beating his Eternal Rival merited as 'something to see' to Gai.

And they arrived to hear Kakashi say something quite extraordinary.

"I'll place my father's old Chakra Blade, repaired and all, on the table, in return for everything else in the game thus far."

The crowd immediately hushed. The White Fang's chakra blade? That was one of the signatures of the Konoha of days past!

The crowd began whispering, about the possibility of Naruto gaining ANOTHER legendary sword.

Jiraiya was silently praying, thanking God above for his student's absurd luck.

Icha Icha Swords practically wrote itself, damnit!

"Ok! Whatcha got?"

Tenten's heart stopped.

Everyone in Konoha knew who Kakashi's dad was. He was a legend, equal to that of the Sannin. And one of the most incredible things about him was his white chakra fang, one of the two strongest swords to ever come out of Konoha.

Naturally, as she arrived, all the villagers started whispering, and quietly moved out of her way, letting her (and her team) approach the gamblers unobstructed.

Tenten didn't pay it much mind, as she was too caught up in the game. But her team, the other teams, and the villagers thought that she was up in the clouds for a different reason.

"Heh... This game is mine, Naruto. Full House, Queens over Jacks."

Tenten's head dropped. Even if Naruto didn't give the sword to her, she'd have loved to at least see it.

The whole of the audience noticeably sighed. It seemed as if Naruto wouldn't have another gift for his beloved... It was a sad day for romantics everywhere.

"Hehe... You better get to reforging it, Kakashi-sensei. Straight flush to the 9, in hearts."

The audience immediately picked back up, and there was much applause from the crowd. Naruto looked up, finally noticing all the people there. He had been too intent on the game to really notice just how many people were watching.

Planning on looking for Sakura, to show her how cool he was with his Mad Card Playing Skills, Naruto instead saw someone else.

Directly in the front of him stood Tenten, who's face had gone pale after hearing Naruto gain ANOTHER legendary sword. Naruto, remembering the fact that he didn't actually know HOW to use a sword, much less a legendary chakra blade, decided to approach her, and offer her another one.

"Oh, hi Tenten! Didja hear? I just won-"

Before he could say anything, Tenten swooned, passing out right into Naruto's arms.

Somehow completely missing half the crowd 'awing' or cooing, Naruto turned to Gai, wondering what was wrong with the girl.

"Uh... What's going on? What happened to her?"

"The moment must of just gotten to her, Naruto-kun! Why don't you just take her someplace to rest?"

Wondering at what the heck Gai was winking so much about, Naruto decided that it was probably a good idea to get her away from all these people, and walked off with Tenten, carrying the girl bridal style.

Jiraiya walked over to Kakashi, who was still sitting at the table, head in his hands.

"Well... It looks like I'll be taking the kid on over to Tanzuki Gai now. You better get on fixing that chakra blade, eh? But... Seeing how upset ya are, I'll still send ya previews of my next chapters, alright?"

Even as Kakashi bucked up, and Naruto wandered away... Sakura stood in the shadows, growling frustrated to herself.

And she completely refused to admit to herself why.

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Naruto decided to take Tenten out to one of the training grounds that Team 7 used, to give her some fresh air and time to awaken and compose herself. After all, she must be pretty embarrassed, fainting in front of all those people.

So he placed her leaning against a tree, and sat on the ground, waiting for her to wake up.

Five minutes later, Tenten awoke. Naruto had ceased to pay attention to her, instead turning to one of the chakra control meditation techniques Jiraiya had taught him the day before.

"Hello... Naruto."

Tenten, having thought about a moment similar to this for a while now, found herself completely without words. She just didn't know what to say. Luckily, Naruto was both clueless enough not to notice, and talkative enough to fill in the silence.

"Oh, hiya Tenten! Awake now, eh? Yeah, Gai-sensei said to take you somewhere else when ya fainted back there. So, is everything better?"

"Yeah... yeah it is, Naruto. So, uh..."

Tenten had wanted to know more about her surprising benefactor. It seemed appropriate, what with his odd way of courting her. But now that he was actually there with her... She couldn't think of anything to say.

But... There was one thing that was bothering her that she wanted to double-check...

"Naruto... Was that Jiraiya of the Sannin standing behind you before?"

"Yeah! He's been training me for the past month or so. He's a good teacher, once ya get past his massive perversion."

"Has he... introduced you to the other Sannin, Tsunade?"

It was fact that there were more male ninja then female ninja. The disparity grew larger and larger the higher the rank went, from the 2-1 ratio of male/female genin, to the 30-1 male/female jounin.

This didn't give little kunoichi that many people to look up to.

However, this was assuaged by the existence of Tsunade, a woman who managed to be both a kickass fighter and the world's best healer at the same time. Little girls who wanted to be either profession could look up to her with ease.

Tenten was no exception. Seeing few female role-models, and having even fewer NORMAL male ones... Tenten had stuck to her desire to be like, no... To be BETTER then Tsunade. It wasn't likely, sure... But it gave her a good yardstick to measure her progress against.

"Nope! Though, err... I killed the other one, the other day; I haven't met Ero-sennin's third teammate yet. Why?"

"Oh, no reason, I guess. So, uhh... Anything you want to talk about?"

Naruto was a little confused. There seemed to be more to that statement then there was... But damned if he knew what.

Before he could say anything in reply, though, Tenten continued.

"You know, I've been wondering. Why me? Why did you choose me? I mean, it's not like we even know each other, you know?"

Tenten meant the statement one way. Naruto took it to mean something else.

"Well... When I received Zabuza's sword... He told me that a sword should always be used. And, well... Kakashi-sensei told me that it would take too much time to train myself in Kenjutsu, and that I wouldn't be able to also master Ninjutsu at the same time. So, I decided to look for someone that used swords, and would be worthy of wielding Zabuza's weapon. And I found you."

'That... That's pretty much as unromantic as you can get. But then again, his idea of romance is giving a girl giant bladed weapons, so maybe it can be forgiven a little.'

But something in what he said bothered Tenten.

"Well... Maybe I can help you with learning how to fight with swords? Your teacher was exaggerating a bit... Learning to fight swords doesn't take THAT long. Mastering it might, but the basics don't. It would give us a chance to get to know each other a bit, and maybe see if this would all work out?"

Tenten quickly turned away, blushing at seeming so forward. To her, she had pretty much stated her acceptance of Naruto's courting, to see where it could possibly go.

If she had kept looking at Naruto, she would have seen his face grow incredibly confused, as he turned her statement over in his head.

Not really following most of it, he latched onto the parts of it that made sense.

"Sure! That sounds great! I even just got a new sword... You'll teach me how to use Kakashi's Dad's chakra blade?"

"Yeah... That sounds good."

Naruto was elated. The more people who taught him stuff like that, the cooler ninja he would be! If his current rate of learning how to be awesome continued, he'd practically be Hokage in a year or two!

"Well, Ero-sennin wants to take me out on a trip to some nearby village or something... But when we get back, you'll be the first person I look up, ok?"

The two, finishing their chat, didn't even notice the several observers.

The obvious person to be watching was Jiraiya, who was quietly taking notes on their conversation, planning on working it into the dialogue of the book.

The rest of Team Gai was nearby, ready to appear and kick Naruto's ass if he said anything to hurt Tenten, or did anything inappropriate.

And finally, there was both Hinata and Sakura, there to make sure that Tenten did nothing inappropriate to Naruto. Sakura wasn't sure why she cared so much, but she justified it to herself as she had to watch out for her 'clueless teammate', and to keep him away from evil women who would steal his heart and then walk away.

Maybe someday soon she'd be ready to admit to herself that she wished Sasuke would give HER legendary weaponry... But not yet.

Hinata… Hinata just hung her head. Kurenai be damned, she needed another drink!

Author's Notes: Well… Someone put up the good idea that a way for Tenten and Naruto to bond is if Tenten taught him how to use a sword. There will be many hilarious rumors abounding, once word gets out that Tenten is teaching him the proper use of 'his sword'.

This sets up nicely for the next chapter, which should be fairly obvious in what the basic premise will be. Some other stuff might happen… But that's pretty much it.

Sakura is reaching the breaking point of her temper… But what she's so angry about, and how she will react… She has no clue.

Hinata? She's just here for the hilariously cute image I have in my head of what a drunken Hinata would look like. I am by no means a fan of any particular girl in the series (and if I was to choose any match up as my favorite, it wouldn't be Naruto/Hinata)… But out of all the girls, she'd have to be the one that ended up being the most adorable drunk. She'll play a larger part down the road, though. Maybe Temari will, too, but I'm not sure how that will go down.

Note that this will NEVER crossover with another series to bring in alternate super swords, or anything like that.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Jiraiya cackled gleefully to himself, rubbing his hands together.

'That bastard Ikari has it coming to him! He'll rue the day he tried to cheat me out of my profits!'

Indeed... Jiraiya had a long and sordid history, with many crimes and immoralities abounding throughout.

However... This had nothing to do with any of them.

When Jiraiya first wrote Icha Icha, a man named Ikari was contracted as his publisher. Unfortunately, Jiraiya didn't read through the contract.

And it was only afterward that he found out that Ikari was going stealing most of the profit.

But now Jiraiya had the means to ruin him! Ikari's main source of income was his casino... And he now had the means to which to totally bust the house... Without cheating.

It was a good day to be Jiraiya.

"Ok, Naruto... Just remember what we talked about. You go in there, and you win as much money as possible. Just go to the highest cash game you can find... And win. Actually... Better yet, if you can find a blackjack table, or maybe craps..."

"Aw, come on, Ero-sennin! I just want to train! Cards are fun and all... But I gotta be a kickass ninja, too!"

Jiraiya sighed. Couldn't the brat see how important this was? He'd just to have to show Naruto how much girls liked the high rollers, then...

"How about this... You walk out of there with more then, say, quadruple the money you walked in, and I'll teach you one of the Yondaime's signature jutsus, ok?"

"DEAL!"

After getting the heads up from Kakashi, Naruto and Jiraiya left on their way to Tanzuki Gai, for Naruto to get some revenge (not that he knew it) for Jiraiya.

Of course, if questioned, Jiraiya had a number of other reasons prepared for why he was doing this. Some of them were even applicable and logical, too. The best one he had was that it was for filler scenes for Icha Icha Swords. He would make up a premise (like, say, one of these other gamblers had kidnapped Tenten, or something), and that Naruto was winning her back. However, writing was easiest done when there was also visual information on what to write, so getting Naruto here and letting him gamble was the easiest way to get the stuff down.

It made a little sense, and most would probably just accept it as being one of Jiraiya's eccentricities. In fact, it was even true, to an extent.

There was a reason that Jiraiya did all of his best writing while peeping, after all.

There were also some other, more minor reasons, like showing Naruto there was something he was REALLY good at, which would give him something about himself to take pride in. Maybe give him a way to make a living if something should ever happen to his ninja career, or something.

However, as Jiraiya followed Naruto in... He immediately noticed something that pretty much proved to him that Naruto was essentially the avatar of the Luck God.

For there, sitting at a table gleefully dealing out cards, was his old teammate, Tsunade.

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"Itachi... I have a bad feeling about this."

"As do I, Kisame. He is with Jiraiya of the Sannin, a foe neither of us could hope to defeat. However... Pein-sama has made it clear that we have to capture the Nine-Tails now. For whatever reason, our schedule has been rushed."

Outside the casino, two evil-doers plotted. Dastardly plans were formed, then quickly broken down and discarded, all in an effort to figure out a way to separate the Vessel from his teacher.

What they come up with, while not the best of plans, was the best option they could see.

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"Naruto... Change of plans. That table. Go to that table, now!"

"Bwa-What? You said to find the table with the most visible money! That table is decent, sure... But it ain't the most."

"Naruto... That woman over there is my old Teammate, Tsunade. Ya know, the one that your little girlfriend with the swords looks up to? Just go and play at that table, alright?"

Naruto, quietly protesting Tenten being his girlfriend, made his way over to Tsunade's table, and sat down in an open seat directly across from the woman.

"Well... Aren't you a bit young to be playing here, kid? Why don't you go outside and play with some other children, and leave the adults to their own entertainment."

Naruto was going to be nice to the woman. She was, after all, his teacher's old teammate, and apparently the idol of young women everywhere.

But then she went and insulted him.

"Why don't YOU go outside and knit something, old woman? Maybe go bake some cookies or something? Because old hags certainly shouldn't be hanging out with people this much younger then them!"

"Why you little brat-!"

Just as Tsunade looked like she was about to reach across (or maybe break through) the table and strangle Naruto... Jiraiya appeared.

"Damnit, Naruto! I told you to place nice with her, not antagonize her!"

"You never said that, Ero-sennin! You just told me to take all her money!"

Tsunade sat back in her seat, eye-twitching.

"Somehow, I'm not surprised to see you training ANOTHER little brat, Jiraiya. Would it kill you to ever teach any of them manners?"

"Yeah, well... You know me, Tsunade. My students may all be brats... But they tend to be the best ninjas of their time."

Jiraiya was playing it up a little, because he wanted to see Tsunade's expression when she found out what happened to Orochimaru. No one would ever expect him to have died by Toad-Squishing.

As Naruto started to puff up in pride at that, Tsunade swiftly burst his bubble.

"Well, I can see that MAYBE Minato was worth that title... But what the hell has THIS brat done to deserve a title like that?"

Now, it should be known that Tanzuki Gai wasn't THAT far away from Konoha. Word spreads easily, too, especially about Important Things.

No one actually recognized Naruto here... But many of them had heard the stories of the Genin who slew legendary ninja to show his love for his woman.

So when Jiraiya replied to Tsunade... Many began to listen.

"Well... Naruto here has done some extraordinary things lately. A couple months ago, he slew Momochi Zabuza, one of the former 7 Mist Swordsman, and took his sword. And, just over a week ago... He saved Sarutobi-sensei's life... And killed Orochimaru."

Silence filled that area of the casino.

Tsunade looked sharply at Jiraiya, and then turned her gaze to Naruto.

After a moment or two of Naruto looking back at her proudly... She laughed.

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that THIS brat killed Orochimaru? I don't think YOU could kill him... So why believe this kid could?"

Naruto bristled.

"I did! Are you calling me a liar, hag? I dropped Gamabunta on him, and-"

"Yeah, yeah, kid... Save it for someone who'll believe ya. Now, back to the game- HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?!"

You see, during the whole time they were talking, the card game had continued. And Naruto had continued to play, even while not even paying attention.

Tsunade was shocked... No, stunned... To see that Naruto had somehow amassed 9/10 of the chips on the table in that short timeframe.

Tsunade gaped. Jiraiya started chuckling, breaking Tsunade out of her reverie.

"Yes! This is more then enough! Now ya have to teach me one of the Yondaime's jutsus, Ero-sennin!"

"Sure, sure, Naruto. Yeah, Tsunade, that's one of the other reasons why we're here... Naruto is pretty much the luckiest person I've ever seen at cards. Why, just the other day he won a THIRD legendary sword off of the Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi, in a game of cards; That old chakra blade of Konoha's White Fang. Impressive, no?"

Tsunade was sick of hearing Jiraiya praise the kid. She didn't believe a little genin could kill Orochimaru... And she didn't believe the kid could be THAT good at cards.

"No way... He had to of cheated. You're pretty good at that, though... I didn't even notice ya doing it. So I guess you are good at something, it seems... Though I don't know if cheating at cards is a skill to be proud of..."

Naruto leapt to his feet, anger forming a visible aura around him. No one accused him of being a cheater! That was, well... Cheating! And cheating was wrong!

"I'm not cheater! Maybe if you didn't suck so much, I wouldn't win so easily!"

Tsunade also stood up. By this time, everyone else playing at the table had quickly backed away, but they and many more had turned to watch the escalating fight.

"Are you still insulting me, kid? I've killed people for less! Don't make me kick your ass."

"Hah! Bring it! I could beat you any day of the week!"

"Is that a challenge?"

"Hells yeah it is! Outside, now!"

With that, Naruto ran outside, leaving Jiraiya (who was swiftly collecting Naruto's winnings) and Tsunade within.

"I hope you don't blame me if your kid dies, Jiraiya... He started this."

To Tsunade's surprise, Jiraiya started to laugh again.

"Oh... I think you're in for one heckuva surprise, Tsunade. After all... Have you ever known me to make jokes when it comes to Orochimaru?"

Jiraiya turned and left, leaving a contemplative Tsunade to follow after him.

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"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT HERE!?"

This was most definitely NOT what Jiraiya was expecting to see when he arrived outside.

For, it seemed that there were people waiting for them.

And not the good kind of people.

Out in front of the casino was Naruto confronting two people Jiraiya hoped not to see on the trip.

Well, not these two in particular... But any team from Akatsuki counted as bad news.

Especially when they're Hoshigake Kisame and Uchiha Itachi.

"No, you idiot! You don't use the Food Cart Destroyer in the middle of a crowded city! You might kill civilians!"

And especially when Naruto's idea of fighting involved dropping toads on people.

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Indeed, Itachi and Kisame had been hoping to get Naruto when Jiraiya wasn't around.

It was pretty much the best thing that could have happened, really. Without Jiraiya around, there should have been no problem disabling the Jinchuriki, and making good their escape.

But... to Itachi's surprise, after Naruto dropped the huge toad on them (or tried to)... Kisame seemed to freeze up.

He looked... Scared. Terrified, even.

Itachi turned... And saw Jiraya and Tsunade exiting the building.

"Kisame, control yourself. Even though Jiraiya and, apparently, Tsunade of the Sannin have arrived, doesn't mean you should-"

"Not Tsunade! It's that kid! He's the Sword-Thief!"

Itachi's brow rose. He hadn't heard any such thing about their target, before.

"Sword-Thief? Do explain."

Itachi thought it might help them stall for time, seeing as all of their opponents stopped preparing to fight, to listen to Kisame's explanation.

Or, more accurately, Tsunade had stopped to listen, while Jiraiya had pulled out a pen and paper, and was scribbling stuff down.

"You were there when we heard about this guy the other day! Ya know, he's the one who killed both Momochi Zabuza AND Orochimaru, just to give their swords to show his love to some girl. I'm NOT going to let him add Samehada to that list!"

With that, Kisame shunshined away. Itachi, standing alone for a moment, swiftly followed after.

Naruto turned to Jiraiya.

"Did I... Did I just scare away the giant Fish-man?"

Jiraiya nodded sagely.

"That was Hoshigake Kisame, Naruto... An S-ranked Missing nin, former member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, and possessor of one of the most powerful swords ever forged in Kiri; Samehada."

Naruto's face lit up.

"I scared away an S-ranked missing-nin? I'm totally awesome!'

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Tsunade was confused.

Apparently the brat HADN'T been lying. Jiraiya, either.

And, watching the kid gleefully dance about, he was pretty much the perfect archetype of the student that Jiraiya always seemed to train.

It also seemed that Naruto took to summoning toads fairly well... Though it wasn't nearly as large as the one Jiraiya used for the Food Cart Destroyer, the toad Naruto managed for that wasn't too shabby.

Plus, the one the size Jiraiya usually used would have probably crushed a quarter of the town.

She turned towards Jiraiya, though... Because there was something else bothering her about this situation.

"Jiraiya... Why the hell are their two S-Rank Missing-nins looking for this kid?"

Jiraiya sighed, and motioned Tsunade closer to him.

"Because... Well, because he's the vessel. Their organization wants to do something that involves having all of the... Biju."

And then it all made sense to Tsunade.

She turned towards Naruto, and spoke.

"Hah! I knew you were cheating! You must be using some of 'it's' power to be that good at cards, much less kill someone like Orochimaru!"

Naruto stopped his cavorting, and glared back at Tsunade.

"You take that back! I never use the fox's strength, not when I can help it! I do it all on my own, and one day, because of that, I'll be Hokage! Believe it, old hag!"

Tsunade's eyes widened as Naruto announced his plans for the future.

Just for a moment there... He had looked so much like Nawaki...

She turned her heard, and snorted.

"Hah, who the hell would want that shitjob? Being Hokage sucks and those would want to be it are even stupider."

Again, she could practically feel Naruto's chakra get agitated at that, and it looked like at any moment he would lose control and attack her.

"You take that back! Being Hokage... Being Hokage is my dream! Protecting everyone... Making everyone my precious people... That has to be the most important job there could be! Even if they don't like me, or they don't appreciate me... It won't matter! I'll still be Hokage!"

It all sounded so familiar to Tsunade... She had heard it before, from her own precious people.

But she was a lot more jaded now, a completely different person. Or so she liked to think.

Now? Now she laughed.

"Hah! Bring it, punk. Being Hokage just isn't worth it."

Naruto rushed towards her.

With that, the battle was on...

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"Kisame... You cannot flee from our target like a scared child. We NEED to capture him, and we need to capture him NOW. People from Konoha might already be on their way, sending word of our passage through the village."

"I know, Itachi... It's just that, well... I can't risk Samehada. You know why."

Itachi stared at Kisame for a moment, before responding.

"We will have to alter the plan, taking Tsunade into account. But... Regardless of her presence... We MUST try again to kidnap the vessel. If we fail, then there was nothing that could be done, and we shall return to headquarters. But best we not run that risk."

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... And it wasn't surprising in the least that Naruto was getting tossed around like a rag doll.

About 5 minutes into the fight, though... Something changed.

One of Tsunade's punches opened up a gash on the side of Naruto's face, parallel to his whisker-marks.

And it started to bleed.

Naruto was shocked when Tsunade froze up, letting one of his own punches through.

Jiraiya rushed into the fray, concerned at the course this was taking... He had figured by now that Tsunade would have gotten over her Hemophobia.

However, the second Jiraiya had let himself be distracted... A blast of fire headed straight towards him.

It seemed as if Itachi and Kisame had returned... Right in Tsunade's moment of weakness.

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"Kisame... Now is our chance. Tsunade seems incapacitated."

"Alright, alright... I just don't want to let that kid anywhere near Samehada! Who knows what he would try to do..."

"Fine... When we attack, the vessel is more likely to attempt to aide Jiraiya. So I will engage Jiraiya, holding him off while you handle Tsunade. She seems to be stunned, for whatever reason, so if you are fast, it can be over quickly. Then, attack Jiraiya, and I will use the moment of surprise to capture the vessel, and we make our escape."

"Sounds good to me."

"Then we attack... Now."

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Jiraiya swiftly dodged to the side of the fireball, returning the shot with a blast of toad oil.

Naruto pulled back a little, unsure of where he should go.

And then he saw Tsunade, still on her knees, frozen from the sight of his blood.

And he saw the giant blue man who thought he was going to steal his sword rush her, blade swung back to strike.

And he knew what he had to do.

"This will be easier then I thought-!"

Just as Kisame brought his sword down... Naruto appeared, tackling the blade itself from the side, knocking it off course.

However... There was no way Naruto could expect the properties of Samehada... The way that it shaved, more then it cut.

The result wasn't pretty. To Tsunade... It looked awfully lethal. Naruto had caught the blade, and continued to hold onto it... Causing more and more friction between it and him, which meant more and more damage was being caused every second.

But... That didn't seem to slow Naruto down. He remained standing, stopping the blade from reaching Tsunade.

Tsunade found herself looking up at Naruto's back.

Blood was gushing freely from his arms, even as Kisame pulled his sword back.

To Tsunade's growing horror, Kisame started trying to dislodge the boy from his sword. The frantically terrified expression on Kisame's face stood in stark contrast to his actions.

He waved the sword around, slamming it as hard as he could into the ground, trying to get Naruto off his sword.

Tsunade stood frozen in horror, watching the terrible scene play out

Kisame, though... Kisame was just as concerned as Tsunade. For entirely different reasons.

"YOU LITTLE BASTARD! YOU'RE NOT TAKING SAMEHADA AWAY FROM ME! I WON'T LET YOU!"

Naruto had managed to latch onto Samehada like a barnacle, for whatever reason. Finally, though, Kisame managed to dislodge him.

And Naruto's body landed at Tsunade's feet.

Naruto turned his head a little, looking straight up into Tsunade's face, and mumbled something that Tsunade could barely hear.

"I... Told'ja... Gotta protect... Everyone. It's what... The Hokage... Does."

'Even... Even now, he keeps to his dream? There's no way he'll survive! It'll be just like... Just like them...'

Tsunade felt as if her body was running on autopilot, almost.

It was surreal... It was as if she was watching from a neutral vantage, seeing her body stand up on its own, with chakra beginning to glow around her hands, before it winked out.

Even as Kisame managed to recompose himself after getting his sword back away from Naruto... A punch came out of nowhere, hitting him directly in the stomach.

And knocking him back a good 30 feet, directly into a tree.

Kisame, severely winded, looked up to see Tsunade standing over him, head down, but clearly enraged.

And he did what any smart man would do.

He fled.

Itachi, seeing that they had missed their opportunity, took his leave as well.

Jiraiya immediately ran over to Naruto, who had fallen to his knees, upper body covered in blood.

"Shit! We need to get those healed up, pronto!"

He looked over to Tsunade, who was still standing before the tree that Kisame had smashed into.

He sighed... 'It must have been a one-time deal for her, getting past her hemophobia like that...'

But, to his surprise... Tsunade turned, and walked back, calm as you could be.

And Jiraya was shocked even further when she knelt down next to Naruto, and began passing her hands over his arms, knitting flesh back together over the bones.

"Heh... I told ya, hag... That I'm gonna be Hokage, and protect everyone..."

Jiraiya put his face in his palm.

'Not even after getting his arms ripped apart can he be unconscious like a normal person... No, he just has to go and antagonize the person healing him.'

But, to Jiraiya's surprise... Tsunade merely laughed.

"Sure, sure... I believe you."

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Surprisingly for Tsunade (and not-so-surprisingly for Jiraiya, who had witnessed his healing before) Naruto was ready to go after a single night of bed rest.

However... Tsunade stunned both of them with an announcement.

"I've decided that I'm going to go back with you two, see how Konoha's doing."

"What the hell? I thought you said you'd never go back, years ago!"

Tsunade turned, and smiled slyly at Jiraiya, and patted Naruto on the head.

"Yeah, well... I want to see if this one really CAN become Hokage. Besides... I think you're onto something. I think that if he was MY apprentice, then I could do a better job of training him to become Hokage."

Jiraiya's eyes twitched, even as Naruto cheered at having a new supporter/teacher.

"You're just saying that because you want to use him to gamble for you."

"Well, um... Maybe?"

But, inside... Jiraiya was cackling.

He was right... Icha Icha Swords DID write itself. Even when he wasn't trying, Naruto managed to do the exact correct thing to make the plot better!

Though one thing was bothering Jiraiya...

"Tsunade... Don't you have an apprentice already, or something? That Shizune girl? Where is she, anyway?"

"Shizune... Disapproves of my gambling. So, every so often I ditch her in some random city and go off to gamble. Don't worry, she'll find me eventually."

And thus, Naruto made his way back to Konoha.

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-3 Days Later-

"Well, this isn't good. Tanzuki Gai is the last place I could think of that Tsunade-sensei could be. She's not here... Where on earth could she have gone?"

Shizune stood out in front of one of the major casinos in Tanzuki Gai, stumped.

"Well, if she's not here... I guess that means she left the country? That's not like something she'd do... But it'd be more likely then her going to Konoha, right?"

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At the same time that Shizune began her northward trek out of Fire Country, Naruto arrived back in Konoha, Tsunade and Jiraiya in tow.

Immediately word spread throughout town that he was back, and the rumors grew even more fevered when people saw Tsunade walking with him.

"What does it mean? Why would Tsunade come back with him? What could possibly be going on?"

The villagers discussed this, and more, from the second Naruto arrived. Rumors grew even stranger, from Naruto bringing Tsunade back as some sort of gift to Tenten, to Naruto claiming HER as a legendary weapon.

None of them made much sense, sure... But they were amusing.

With such rumors abuzz, Naruto wandered about town, looking for anyone that he knew.

Well, he was mainly looking for Sakura-chan or Sasuke, to let them know that he so awesome that even S-ranked Missing nins were afraid to fight him.

Of course, this presented a problem... Because Sakura was looking for him.

This meant that both were checking different places.

After all, Naruto would never expect to find Sakura at Ichiraku's.

However, Sakura had camped out there the second she heard that Naruto was back, expecting it to be the first place he went to.

So, the first person Naruto ran into was Tenten, who was being aided in her search by pretty much every civilian.

Naruto spotted Tenten walking down the street, and figured that he should go up and say hello, and let her know he was ready for the sword lessons.

"Hiya, Tenten!"

Tenten spun around, smiling, and greeted Naruto back.

"Hello, Naruto. So, err... How was your trip?"

"It was awesome! I found out that I can scare away S-rank missing nins, just by looking at their swords!"

Tenten sweat dropped at that, but her curiosity overcame her, prompting her to question that further.

"S-rank missing nin? You ran into S-ranked missing nins on your trip? And one of them was afraid of you? Do you know who they were?"

Tenten and Naruto found themselves walking as they talked, not really paying attention to where they were going.

It was pure chance that found them walking by the cafe where Uchiha Sasuke was eating lunch, surrounded by adoring fan girls... Who of course kept a mandatory 10 meter distance from him at all times, lest Sasuke get irritated at them for their blatant stalking.

"Yeah... Jiraiya said they were 'Hoshigake Kisame' and 'Uchiha Itachi'... Hey... Would that make the other guy Sasuke's brother? Man, I wonder why he ran away, too? It's not like he had a sword on him..."

Neither notice Sasuke, only hearing that last statement, choke on his sandwich.

Nor did they see several fan girls converge on his body, ready to perform the Heimlich and mouth to mouth.

"That's pretty cool... I think I even recognize that first guy's name."

"Yeah, he had this really huge sword that was covered in this rough stuff that shaved skin off. But I couldn't get a good look at it, because he ran the second he could. So, uh, anyway... When do ya want to do some training?"

As the conversation moved onwards, more and more rumors were created, though none as momentous as that last one.

The one that caused Sasuke to choke.

Word would soon spread throughout Konoha, and then throughout Fire Country, of the Genin whose mere presence terrified S-rank Missing Nins.

And as the two walked through town, Naruto remembered something that Tenten had asked the other day.

"So, remember the other day, when you were asking me if I had ever met Tsunade, the third Sannin? Well… Funny story, that…"

Naruto had finally managed to lower his voice a bit, so many of the onlookers couldn't hear what he was saying.

But all of them saw Tenten's response.

After all… It's not everyday you see a flying glomp executed with such precision.

Author's Notes: And Naruto has brought Tsunade back. She ain't gonna be Hokage, nor is she here to train Tenten or anything. After all, Naruto doesn't know anything at all about Tenten looking up to Tsunade in particular; He knows little girls in general idolize her, but that's it. Tenten never got a chance to mention it to him.

However, Tsunade is here now, for what purposes… We shall see.

No new sword obtained this chapter… Though Kisame will now fear Naruto like the plague. He certainly won't be happy if he gets sent out to capture Naruto again.

Next chapter will have some important explanations for Naruto, as well as him picking up another legendary weapon. Which one it is… We'll see.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Kakashi was well known for many things. His love of Icha Icha, his 'rivalry' with Gai, his skill in battle, his sharingan... There were many things that people knew about him. The only thing that people knew about him that no one really spoke of was his father, and the shame that drove the man to suicide.

To many, it was a surprise that Kakashi would even willingly bring the man up, to bet his sword away in some silly poker game with one of his students.

A lesser known fact about him, that of his usually incredible skill at poker, was currently the topic of whispers amongst the rumor-mongers and gossipers. Someone heard from a friend of a friend that Kakashi had LET Naruto win the poker game... To pass on the tradition of the sword? To show his approval of his student courting Gai's? No one knew, but theories were getting weirder and weirder (the latest was that Kakashi and Gai had gotten drunk, and decided to 'Unite the Teams', and that this was Kakashi's way of engaging Naruto to Tenten), and Kakashi was doing nothing to quell them.

Indeed... The man found them hilarious.

Thus we are presented with a rather unique situation, where Kakashi, pathologically late in everything that he did, stunned most of Konoha by presenting the newly repaired chakra blade to Naruto a mere 30 minutes after Naruto arrived back in Konoha.

Of course, none would be surprised that only one word was running through his mind at the time, repeated over and over even as he blushed and giggled perversely.

'Icha Icha Icha Icha Icha Icha...'

Hey, the man knows what he likes. Don't knock the books til ya read 'em.

So the scene was set, in the middle of the town, civilians and ninjas alike watching the village's soap opera continue.

Because Kakashi had the incredibly poor timing to arrive mere moments after Tenten glomped onto Naruto.

Jiraiya was trailing behind Kakashi, and Tsunade was following Jiraiya, both trying to watch the scene. Jiraiya with pen out and scribbling, Tsunade just confused about what the heck was going on. She had thought Jiraiya had been exaggerating the situation a bit, as he was wont to do from time to time.

But then she walks in on a good crowd of people surreptiously watching some girl with her hair up in buns tackle-hug her new pseudo-student/gambler.

Perhaps it was lucky for Naruto that Tenten didn't actually notice Tsunade yet... Who knows what the girl would do?

There were more and more people arriving, most wanting to know if Naruto had done the impossible yet again and had managed to bring ANOTHER sword home for Tenten.

One person, though, was upset by what she was seeing. Hinata had arrived a few moments before Kakashi had, and was stunned by Tenten apparently sexually assaulting Naruto in a way that Hinata could only dream of. The fact that it was a mere hug in no way stopped her from imagining where that hug could lead to, with Naruto hugging her back, and then kissing her, and then taking off his pants...

Yeah, Hinata stood quietly in a shady corner, blushing and poking her fingers together, mind traveling from one lewd thought to another in her slightly inebriated mental state.

Kurenai hadn't been quite as successful as she could have hoped, it seemed.

Watching Naruto's face cycle from shocked to confused to embarrassed... Hinata felt something in her mind click.

She needed to do something, before all hope was lost.

And an idea struck her with such force, that she decided to take a celebratory sip of sake for the sheer genius it possessed.

Now, to find Neji...

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"So, uh, now that I have the sword... Do you want to start the lessons?"

Naruto wasn't quite sure what was going on. All he did was mention that he brought that Tsunade woman back to the village with him, and then WHAM! he was on the ground with Tenten on top of him. He remembered seeing situations similar to this before, where girls would try to hug Sasuke... But Sasuke would always somehow dodge them.

'Damnit, Sasuke! I guess I have to train harder, if I can't even dodge this sort of thing!'

Poor Naruto... Not even realizing that dodging an attractive girl trying to hug you was NOT the correct course of action in this situation.

Tenten was similarly embarrassed, not quite sure what had come over her. It seemed as if Naruto was going out of his way to make every possible desire she might ever have had to be true... Now she would actually have the chance to measure herself against Tsunade! If the woman came back with Naruto, she might even be able to talk to her! This was great!

But then, Naruto mentioned training, and Tenten pulled herself together.

"Yeah, sure... That sounds good. How about we go over to the training ground..."

Tenten stood up, and pulled Naruto to his feet, and the two wandered off in the direction of the nearest training ground. The smiles and gossip of the villagers went unnoticed by Naruto, and went ignored by Tenten.

Both had more important things on their mind.

For Tenten, her mind had turned all business. Seeing the White Fang for the first time, she tried to decide what style it would be best suited for, and, with what she knew of Naruto, what style HE would be best suited for.

Naruto's mind... well, it was less focused.

"I thought we already decided that we would use ninjutsu, Naruto?"

"Bah! We have another kickass sword! Now we can impress Sakura-chan with that!"

Naruto was thinking long-term, something people would normally not expect of him. Then again, those who knew him wouldn't be all that surprised by his current mental path.

'Stronger ninjas are cooler ninjas, and I have to be the best and coolest ninja if I want to be Hokage and get Sakura-chan! And I want to get there as fast as possible! And I have Tenten here willing to teach me how to use a sword... But would that be better then spending time with Ero-sennin learning more ninjutsu?'

So again, two Chibi-Naruto's appeared over each of his shoulders, one armed with the White Fang, the other with a toad on his head. And again, they were having a loud screaming fight on what Naruto should do.

If people actually knew this was how Naruto's mind resolved his more complex problems, most would cease to be surprised at his personality.

But something different happened this time. The two Chibi-Naruto continued to fight, and Naruto continued to think and debate, when a stray thought passed through his mind.

'Training with Ero-sennin is always such a pain in the ass, though... I wonder if spending time with Tenten would be better?'

As Naruto thought that, the fight wasn't going well for the Sword-Naruto. After all, Ninjutsu-Naruto had received some rather focused training of late, so naturally he was the stronger of the two at the moment.

But as Naruto began to think about the pros and cons of his two teachers... Something happened.

Out of nowhere, a third Naruto appeared and blind-sided the Ninjutsu-Naruto. The third was smaller then the first two, and certainly looked weaker then them. Pale, drawn, and weary, with only one thing to really distinguish him from the other two.

The Sword-Naruto took the opening, and stabbed the Ninjutsu Naruto. The three Naruto's froze for a second, before Ninjutsu-Naruto poofed and disappeared, leaving behind just the Sword-Naruto, and a Naruto with the word 'Sex-Drive' written across the forehead. Then those two disappeared, leaving behind a Naruto who had decided that sword training was he needed right now, and that maybe spending time with a girl who wasn't Sakura wouldn't be so bad.

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"Where the hell is that idiot? I've been waiting here for an hour... Why hasn't he come here for ramen yet?"

Sakura was pissed. More then pissed. The idiot boy was wasting her precious time! She was wasting quality Sasuke time on Naruto, and did he even try to appreciate it? Hell no! He didn't even show up for it!

'Ohhh, he's gonna pay for this!'

Sakura just sat, glaring, refusing to contemplate the idea of giving up.

Somewhere along the line... This had become a matter of pride. Pride in what, she didn't know. But she knew she needed to talk with Naruto about... Something.

Yeah! Talk with him! He was her teammate, right? So she should spend time with him, not that stupid kunai-throwing floozy...

Sakura shook her head. Where the hell had that thought come from?

She had been having thoughts like this a lot more lately, and it was really bothering her. Sure, sometimes she was mean to the boy, but she did like Naruto. He was a friend that Sakura knew she could count on, and knew that he was stronger then everyone thought he was.

That was really the crux of the dilemma... She was so used to having Naruto around, even if it was just him trying to go out with her, that his frequent absences of late just seemed... Weird... to her.

Now that it was missing, she realized how much his constant attempts at trying to win her favor meant to her. Her only other real friend was Ino, and maybe Sasuke, depending on how moody he was on any given day.

'I'm... lonely...'

And she knew why she was lonely. She didn't begrudge Naruto his training with Jiraiya. How could she? That was an enormous opportunity for the guy! But... He was in the village now. He should be doing team stuff, like missions and training and such.

'Not... training with that girl...'

Sakura began to growl a little at the thought, and then realized what she was doing.

'Why does this piss me off so much?'

And thus Sakura's thoughts were brought full-circle, not really getting her anywhere. Because she refused to admit to herself the real answer, that she was afraid that maybe she would lose her friend, and maybe more, because of this other girl.

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"Well, someone's eager for this mission... Getting all dressed up for something? Or maybe... Someone?"

"Shut up, Kankurou! Unlike you, I actually look good. Who cares if I want to make sure I look my best?"

"So it has nothing to do with that blonde brat who ignored you, hmm?"

Wind was in a rather shabby position at the moment. Their Kazekage was dead, a large part of their military killed. They owed Konoha a lot for not exterminating them, that was for sure.

So, it was decreed that a few teams would be dispatched to help out Konoha.

In another time, in another place, this would involve a running battle that ended at the Valley of the End.

Now? Team Baki was being dispatched to Konoha, to be used as needed for the new few months.

Temari turned up her nose.

"Oh, him? I had forgotten all about him. But now that you mention it... Well, he should obviously be shown what he's missing out on, shouldn't he?"

Before Kankurou could reply, Gaara appeared.

"It's time to go."

And the siblings picked up their packs, silently following the youngest, out on a trek to their temporary home.

Kankurou snickered to himself... He had seen his sister like this before. Whenever anything insulted her pride, she got all worked up and retaliated. Usually it had to do with someone insulting her skills as a ninja, or the fact she was a kunoichi, or something stupid like that. This was the first time it had ever happened over a boy, though.

He couldn't wait to see where this was going... He just KNEW he was going to get good blackmail material out of this somewhere.

But then Gaara turned around to glare at him, and Kankurou gulped, and promptly concentrated on the traveling at hand.

Gaara turned back around, and smirked to himself. That in itself would be a surprise to most, as Gaara usually didn't ever really smirk, much less grin or smile, or any other sign of possible enjoyment of a situation (outside killing people, of course).

Gaara had been thinking about what the Uzumaki kid had told him, just before the boy had managed to somehow defeat him. Gaara didn't really know what had caused him to lose, as he never even saw Tenzou during the fight, concentrating on the obvious opponent at hand.

After all, who would normally be considered the bigger threat- A human, or an enormous sword-wielding Toad?

The boy said that they were similar. Gaara figured out what that meant, after some deep thought. The guy was admitting to being a jinchuriki, as well.

And so Gaara began to research into whom exactly Uzumaki Naruto was. And he was shocked about what he learned.

There was a surprising abundance of information circulating about the boy of late. Gaara no longer felt ashamed to have lost to a guy who had apparently also defeated Orochimaru himself, along with some other A-Rank missing-nin.

He heard about the apparent romance that was going on between Naruto and that girl his sister beat up, too. Gaara wasn't one for romance, having no real experience with the subject. He just took a mental note that if he ever did decide to procreate, he should give his chosen woman some kind of trophy from a fallen enemy, or something.

Gaara shook his head at that... Even with his own limited experience, that didn't make sense. But apparently it was what he was supposed to do. Strange.

Gaara thought on the topic of possible trophies he might have already gathered, if he had known he was supposed to, and then brought his mind back to the matter at hand. He had decided that he would be a better brother to his siblings, as apparently caring about your family made you a better person, and let you fight off your biju easier, or something like that. It was what Uzumaki had told him at the end of the fight, and Gaara believed it.

After hearing the tail end of their conversation, Gaara decided that he would start his new life outlook by helping his sister win over Uzumaki. That's what good brothers did, right?

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3 hours later, and with the sun setting, Sakura finally called it quits. She had already had ramen for lunch, and a ramen snack... She didn't want to have ramen for dinner, too.

The dinner rush hadn't quite started yet, though, when three new people arrived at the temporarily deserted ramen stand.

And proceeded to outrage Teuchi with an absurd demand.

"You want me to do WHAT!?"

"You... You need to m-m-move your... stand."

Teuchi stood, bemused.

"And why exactly should I do that, Hyuuga-sama?"

Teuchi had seen a lot in his days as a ramen chef in a ninja-village. He'd seen people be set on fire, seen people run for miles on their hands, hell, he'd even seen a man eat his own head once! (Though Teuchi hadn't know that one was a genjutsu, it still made for a strange sight)

He had even been blackmailed and threatened a time or two before... But never by children.

Well, none of them actually looked threatening. The speaker, who Teuchi recognized as Hyuuga Hinata, certainly was trying, and failing miserably, at looking threatening. The girl couldn't project a threatening image to save her life... And the sake bottle she was clutching to her chest certainly didn't help her threatening image in the least.

One of her escorts Teuchi placed as Hyuuga Neji, who looked more bored then anything else. He certainly didn't seem to want to be there, that was for sure.

Teuchi wasn't quite sure who the youngest girl was, but she looked enough like the other two that Teuchi just figured she was one of their sisters. The girl, who couldn't be older then 7 or 8, was actually doing a more credible job of looking threatening then Hinata was. The fact that she was a cute little girl playing thug made him want to crack up at how adorable the whole thing was.

"Well, bad things will h-h-hic-happen if you don't..."

Hinata trailed off, and turned to look at Neji. Apparently, this was some kind of signal for Neji to do something, but the boy was doing his level best to just ignore the whole situation and wish it ended.

Then the littlest girl kicked Neji in the shins.

Teuchi nearly broke down laughing at that, as Neji turned to glare at her, and got into a staring contest with a girl-child half his age and height. But then he sighed, and apparently decided to play his part.

"If you do not meet Hinata-sama's demands, I will be forced to destroy your stand."

Neji spoke in a monotone, as if reading a script. He wasn't even pretending that he wanted to be here, or that he wanted to be doing this, but was apparently strong-armed into helping.

After speaking his piece, Neji stiffly walked over to one of the stools, and pushed it over.

This was followed by the enthusiastic little girl then kicking the fallen stool.

Apparently, she liked kicking things.

Teuchi sighed. 'This... This is the worst blackmail attempt I've ever seen.'

"So, what exactly do you want me to do?"

Teuchi decided to humor the children, who were apparently playing some kind of game, or something.

"I... I want you to m-m-move your stand onto the Hyuuga grounds."

At that, the stand went silent.

"You want me to WHAT?"

Hinata could see it, in her head. If Ichiraku's, arguably Naruto's favorite place in the world, were to move to her house, then Naruto would obviously have to visit her a lot. And then HER house would become Naruto's favorite place in the world. And then she could hug Naruto, and he would hug her back, and kiss her, and take off his pants...

Teuchi just continued to stare at the blushing girl, whose blush continued to grow worse and worse by the second.

Neji, wishing that he had never bothered reconciling with Hinata and that the girl was stil weary of approaching him, spoke up.

"Hinata requested it of Hiashi-sama, and he has agreed. The Hyuuga land is right next to the more expensive areas of the marketplace, making it a better location for a restaurant. It would be foolish of you not to accept."

Neji handed a deed over to Teuchi, proving his words to be true.

Why on earth did Hiashi agree to such a ridiculous idea as having a ramen stand on Hyuuga property, you ask?

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"So, if I let this ramen stand that you like be put on our grounds, you'll place you and your team on permanent guard of my private sake stores and stop that dastardly sake thief whenever you aren't on a mission, Hinata?"

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Hiashi was going to regret THAT agreement, for sure.

Teuchi weighed the issue in his mind for a minute or two.

But really, there was really only one answer to this he could give.

"I would be honored to move my stand onto the new property, Hyuuga-sama."

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Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Sarutobi sat within the Hokage office, chatting about old times and such. They were interrupted by the arrival of a messenger from Wind, giving to Sarutobi the details of the teams being sent to aide Konoha.

Right at the top of the list was the name of the Suna Jinchuriki.

Sarutobi sighed. He just knew that would cause him a migraine. There was no way he was going to let the unstable jinchuriki wander Konoha.

But then again... he knew Akatsuki was active. He had just been given Jiraiya's report on what had occurred in Tanzuki Gai. He knew that he couldn't let them get Gaara either.

'What to do, what to do?'

Sarutobi reviewed the facts of the situation. Akatsuki was out there. They were after the biju, thus they were after Jinchuriki. If they captured Jinchuriki, Bad Things happened. Thus, he had to keep Gaara safe. But, due to the whole attack and all, no one would really want Gaara in the village. So Sarutobi had to keep Gaara safe, while keeping him out of the village.

The obvious answer would be to put him in the care of one of his more competent ninjas, and frankly, the only people in the village who would be able to really stop an Akatsuki member were sitting in his office.

So he would just have to send them on a mission out of town, and send Jiraiya or Tsunade along with them.

Weighing it in his mind a bit, and with what he knew of both of his remaining former students... He decided that Jiraiya was the safer choice. Or rather, Sarutobi felt like Jiraiya was the one that he could actually convince to do it.

Especially as he happened upon the perfect mission to convince Jiraiya to take up this order.

Sarutobi's smile grew.

"Jiraiya, I have a mission for you. You are to take Naruto, along with one of the teams from Sand, and hunt down a man named Rokushou Aoi..."

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Four hours later, when Naruto finally arrived at Ichiraku's, a scream of anguish could be heard all throughout the village.

"CLOSED? ICHIRAKU'S IS MOVING? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Author's Notes: So I haven't written very much lately, due to some real life issues that killed my motivation. However, my muse is starting to return. And it also helped that I got a really nice review for this story yesterday. The reviewer put some thought into it, and motivated me to get out the next chapter. I'm easy to please like that : ). So thanks, JEHayes.

As for notes for the actual story… Well, the setup is laid. The raijin shall be the next sword taken. Girls are converging in on Naruto. And Naruto might start actually noticing other girls. Or maybe not. We'll just have to see.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Within a shadowy cave, Evil-Doers plotted.

"I refuse to go after the Kyuubi again! He's got it in for me... He nearly managed to get my sword!"

Well, some were plotting. One or two were whining.

"Kisame, we get the point. You're afraid of some child, yeah. Someone else can handle the Kyuubi while you go and cry in your room."

The Akatsuki were famous in the upper echelons of the ninja world. Any one member of the group appearing would be cause for most ninja villages to enter a state of panic. The fact that they traveled in pairs would cause all but the strongest of villages to either call their leader to battle, or surrender.

"You didn't see the way he was eyeing Samehada! The little bastard was getting ready to grab it and run, I could tell!"

However, if one were to analyze the psychological profiles of the average Jounin ranked ninja, one would come to realize that they tended to be a little... unhinged. Life as a ninja was stressful, and the stronger you got, the more dangerous and stressful life was.

"You're afraid some kid can just walk up and take your sword? Be a fucking man and just beat the boy senseless! Or you can just run away like a scared little girl!"

By the time you reached the level that the average Akatsuki member was at... Well, you kind of earned the right to be immature.

Several figures stood around the room, some actually there, most not. The group known as Akatsuki was planning its eventual capture of the nine tailed beasts, to fulfill some grand plan that no one else quite understood.

"Shut your mouth, Deidara! At least people don't mistake me for a woman!"

"Yeah, they mistake you for a fish!"

Thus, arguments between members tended to swiftly fall into the category most parents would disparagingly refer to as 'bickering'. Due to rather strict rules about fighting each other (and the fact that neither was actually physically present in the same place at the time), the worst they could do was insult each other.

But, as usual, the arguing was swiftly broken up by the 'leader' of the group.

"Both of you shut up. Just... shut up. If Kisame won't go after the Kyuubi, we'll just have to send some other team after them. And since you're so eager to argue with him, Deidara... We'll just switch your two teams' targets. Now Itachi and Kisame will go after the Ichibi, and you and Sasori will go after the Kyuubi. Now... for more important news, we've received word that both of those Jinchuriki's will be out of their respective home villages for the time being, so we'll..."

Kisame didn't even try to hide his sigh of relief. He didn't care, really, what others thought of him. One tended to develop rather thick skin as a child when one had, well, thick skin. That was blue. And had gill slits.

He did put much value, however, into his sword. If anyone were to take it away from him... Well, he wouldn't know what he'd do, but it wouldn't be pretty. It might involve mass murder. Or it might involve Death-By-Chocolate ice cream. Maybe both. At the same time.

But either way... He was just happy he didn't need to worry about it anymore. The fact that his new target made his home in the exact opposite climate that was optimal for Kisame, as well as being able to wield said climate to devastating effect, didn't bother him in the least.

Because Gaara was just known for crushing people with sand, without bothering to take away everything the person felt was precious.

Won't Kisame be in for a surprise when he sees who Gaara will be hanging out with?

Poor, poor Kisame.

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It took quite a bit of doing for Jiraiya to accept the Aoi mission.

Nothing the Sandaime said could really convince him that he should take out a number of children, two of which were jinchuriki (and one of whom was massively unstable), to take out some A-rank missing nin, and defend them all from possible attack by S-rank missing nin.

No, the Third might be the Hokage, but Jiraiya wanted no part of THAT mission. He'd much rather just take Naruto along and handle it himself, but Sarutobi was adamant that Gaara and his team needed to be taken along, as well.

However, Jiraiya WAS convinced, when Tsunade volunteered to go along as well.

The reason she gave was 'to keep Jiraiya out of trouble, and to keep an eye on Naruto'.

The real reason was because the Todoriki Shrine Race was a rather large sporting event, and therefore gambling would be involved.

The mission request involved protecting the runner of one of the teams, and reports from the area are what alerted the Sandaime to the fact that a Konoha Missing-nin was being hired by the opposition to help THEM win.

So, Tsunade reasoned, if Naruto the Luck-Magnet was being hired to help one of the teams win, AND get a new gift for that girl of his... The race was in the bag.

It was a gamble that even she couldn't lose.

So, faced with both Sarutobi AND Tsunade telling him he had to do it, Jiraiya gave in.

But, on one condition...

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Naruto stood, business card in hand.

"THIS is where the new Ichiraku's stand is?"

It was a part of town that he'd only been in when escaping the scene of a cri-err, prank.

The really-really-nice-uber-rich part of town.

Naruto had returned to Ichiraku's stand at 6 am the next morning, in hopes of finding out that the whole 'moving' thing was some kind of mean trick someone was playing on him.

He found an empty lot, with a box of business cards for the 'New Ichiraku's' being the only sign that it had ever been there.

Ninja moving teams were most efficient, it seemed. It looked as if they had just picked up the whole stand and walked away with it.

So, now at 7 am, Naruto stood, looking around, hoping to spot the ramen stand he loved so much.

And he fell on his knees in joy, when he spotted it on the corner of what he recognized to be Hyuuga land (He knew it to be Hyuuga land because it was one of the worst places to try to hide from anybody. After trying it a time or two, Naruto made sure to remember that hiding in a house full of people who can see through walls is a bad idea).

And so, he decided to join the single other customer at the stand in worshipping the spirits in the only way he knew how... Through the divine noodle dish he loved so.

Ra-amen.

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But who else would be up so early to eat Ramen with Naruto at 7 am?

Hiashi had awoken content this morning.

He felt that his sake was now finally safe from intruders. Intruders that could somehow evade the Byakugan were a mighty foe indeed, and it was only his clever, clever daughter who had realized that if the Byakugan could not catch them, then maybe an Aburame insect or Inuzuka nose could.

Indeed, Hiashi's estimation of his elder daughter rose sharply after that. And all she wanted in return was to have a restaurant moved onto some unused portion of their property? Why, that was good business! Why hadn't he ever thought of it himself? Sure, he'd probably not choose a ramen stand, but it was his daughter's idea, and he figured he should encourage this kind of action from her.

But it was a sign of Hinata's inexperience that she chose a ramen stand, and not something nicer. No, the thought was there (and Hiashi was proud of it), but it would take a more... refined... hand to make this work.

No matter where it was, a ramen stand was still a ramen stand... Not a place that the rich and powerful would often want to go to. Snooty people might turn their noses up to the fare, which wouldn't be good for the Hyuuga reputation at all.

So no, Hiashi decided, the Hyuuga clan couldn't afford to have the reputation of catering to the lower cast of society in their choices of food.

So he had to do something to make the stand appealing, to draw in business, and thus increase the Hyuuga prestige.

And it came to him.

'Why, I should be seen eating there myself! After all, if I show publicly that I like this food before any negative rumors get started, then I can turn them all into positive ones. That way, other people will want to 'be like the Hyuugas' and eat like we do... Which would be ramen.'

Yes, Hiashi felt smart indeed, thinking of that.

So, informing Hinata that she was to guard the sake in his absence, Hiashi found himself striding over to the new stand that seemed to be just about to open.

And, even just as he sat down, someone else joined him.

'My plan is working this quickly? Truly, the Hyuuga are a clan full of genius!'

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7 am is when the markets and stalls are beginning their days, a time when more shop workers are present then shoppers.

Thus, the early morning was spent gossiping amongst each other, learning the new goings-on of the town.

And one wild rumor that was flying about, that was quickly confirmed, was that Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Hiashi seemed to be... friends?

"So you say that Miso Ramen makes for the best breakfast dish, hmm?"

"Yup! It really gets ya going in the morning! Chicken Ramen is good for lunch, because it's lighter then beef or pork ramen, which make good dinner dishes. Shrimp ramen is good anytime, really, but since it's more expensive I usually save it for special occasions."

"Yes, morning miso truly is one of the most traditional dishes, is it not? There are few better ways to start the morning... But I must say, I never thought to combine it with noodles. It creates a very... intriguing taste."

"It's delicious! Though I've found that the miso needs to be prepared just so, or the noodles and vegetables will interfere with the taste..."

Naruto continued to ramble on, delighted to finally find someone who seemed to agree with him on the awesomeness of ramen. Even better, this guy appeared to WANT Naruto to go on and on about everything he knew about ramen.

So who was he to deny the man ambrosia?

Hiashi was thanking the Gods for blessing him with this child, who apparently knew everything there was to know about his new business, and who didn't even need to be coerced or tricked into teaching Hiashi about it. Hiashi would listen, and learn, and make this new information his own. And with that, he would make this ramen stand into something else that people would be envious of the Hyuuga over.

But the scene... It painted a strange picture for the onlookers.

To everyone else watching... It looked as if the two were old friends talking, with how they both seemed to smile and nod and talk enthusiastically.

What could it mean? How could the two be friends? If they were, why was Naruto pursuing Tenten and not Hinata?

Wild speculations swept through the jewelry district and into market square. Naruto was having a formal meeting with Hyuuga-sama? He was attempting to plead for Hinata's hand? But wait, what about Tenten?

It didn't make sense!

People swiftly came to the consensus that this meeting could have nothing to do with Hinata, because that would mean everything they had logicked out about Tenten would be wrong.

So what else could Uzumaki Naruto have to do with Hyuuga Hiashi?

People began whispering about everything from Naruto earning the right to learn Jyuuken because he defeated Neji, to Hiashi somehow holding the secret to who Naruto's parents were.

But two things were agreed upon: First, Naruto and Hiashi were clearly friends of some sort.

And second... Ramen stands might just become the place to hang out when trolling for gossip.

But no one could come up with any one single idea that held enough merit to become 'the truth'.

But then, if it didn't make sense, it just meant there was something people didn't know yet. There was some information that no one knew, something that Hiashi DID know, that would somehow let the two be friends.

As the villagers pondered the dilemma, Naruto and Hiashi's breakfast time was coming to a close.

"Well, Uzumaki-san, I must get on with my daily duties. But I am interested in discussing with you the various intricacies of ramen. We shall continue this conversation next time you come by and eat."

As Naruto cheerfully assented, Hiashi began his walk back into his house.

'It's perfect! I even have someone to guard the Sake whenever I must leave to speak to Uzumaki-san. Hinata, you are beginning to prove your worth to the Hyuuga family...'

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Hinata sat alone, by the door to the cellar. Her secret spies amongst the Hyuuga household (Neji always did object to being called that, though Hanabi had a blast playing 'ninja') reported that her father was eating with Naruto.

Naruto!

Someone other then she was taking advantage of the fact that Naruto was going to be hanging out at her house?

Was this a good thing, or a bad thing? It could be good, because her dad might decide he likes Naruto, and that he should marry her, and then Naruto would hug her, and kiss her, and take off his pants...

Hinata shook her head a bit at that, took another sip of sake, and resumed thinking.

The bad side, unfortunately, was a great threat. Her dad might decide he doesn't like Naruto, and therefore she would never get the chance to hug him, much less take off his pants.

Hinata never once contemplated the idea that her father might end up enjoying spending time with Naruto so much, that HE would monopolize Naruto's ramen time, and not her.

Because it was just too silly for her to even think of.

But she had to be fast. Her good spy (as opposed to her grumpy one) had just reported that her father was on his way back, so she'd need to put the sake away quick.

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"That was surprisingly little paper work... I thought we'd be here for hours proving our credentials, but no, they just let us right in. Sloppy work, that."

"Well, I'm not complaining. I just want to put my stuff down, and take a shower. Then we can find the Hokage and report in for missions."

Kankurou and Temari chatted quietly as they walked to where they had been informed at the gate that quarters had been prepared for them. Gaara followed silently after them.

You see, Gaara was thinking.

He wasn't stupid... He knew that the people here would recognize him. And seeing as the last thing he had done when he was here was turn into a giant monster and attempt to rampage through the town... well, we he wasn't expecting a warm welcome.

But then, he never did.

Gaara was trying to figure out what kind of missions they'd be put on. It was stipulated in the loan agreement that the Suna ninja's would take missions as teams, so its not like the Hokage could just send him off on his own (however easier that might make things for him). But he also didn't expect to spend much time around Konoha, because it was known that he was a jinchuriki, and therefore a valuable weapon.

But what kind of mission would it be?

And even as Gaara was lost in thought, and he and his siblings were crossing an intersection, an interesting case of deja vu replayed itself for him.

Just like last time he was in Konoha, some random kid just ran into Kankurou.

Only this time... This time he knew the guy.

So even as Kankurou yelled in surprise and annoyance, Gaara stepped forward.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

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The ninja in question, fresh from picking himself off the ground he had been knocked to, turned and froze.

"... Gaara? What the heck are you doing here?"

Naruto had been in a rather mad dash, afraid that he'd be late for his second training session with Tenten. The girl seemed rather strict about training (something Naruto wholeheartedly approved of), and he didn't want to disappoint her for some reason.

And now... this.

Before Naruto could even draw his new sword, or even before Gaara could respond, someone else stepped forward.

"Hold there, honey... We aren't here to fight. We were dispatched to Konoha to help out with the mission load since the... battle."

Temari smirked to herself, not expecting to see the boy who needed to be shown the error of his ways so quickly. Sure, she'd prefer to be washed up and in nicer clothes before messing with his head, but if she was going to be given an opportunity, she might as well take it.

So Temari subtly applied the basics of what she had learned in her Kunoichi courses. She had smiled lightly, placed her hand on his upper arm, and even used a pet name.

And Naruto managed to completely ignore it. Even with his newly growing mindset of the possibilities of life with another girl then Sakura, his body was still prepping itself for a fight with Gaara, and thus everything else was ignored.

So Naruto contented himself with a light shrug to displace her hand, a quick glance to the side, and then readdressed Gaara.

"That true? You're here to help?"

Gaara nodded. Temari fumed. Kankurou chuckled.

'That's twice she's been blown off! I wish I had a camera...'

"Well, if you guys aren't here to fight, than I gotta go. Got training now!"

And with that, Naruto was off again.

"Well, that went well, didn't it Temari?"

"Not another word, Kankurou, or I'll start telling people whose make-up you first stole for your face-paint."

Gaara didn't even bother telling the two to stop bickering... he had more important things on his mind. Like how he could help his obviously inept sister at landing Uzumaki.

It was clear she wouldn't be able to do it on her own, if Uzumaki could blow her off THAT easily.

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'This... This is nice.'

It was a vision that would have fit well into a martial-arts movie training scene. The sun was rising up on a misty morning, wind lightly blowing through a small grove of trees, and two swordsmen were going through a beginner's sword kata in silence.

Or rather, a swordsman and a swordswomen, if you want to be politically correct about this sort of thing.

'Training is usually so hectic and violent... But this is relaxing... Nice.'

Tenten was thinking similar thoughts, because her training usually wasn't like this, either. All too often it defaulted back to target practice for her, with her teammates getting dodging practice.

Her melee skills had gotten a little rusty, but working with Naruto was definitely getting her back into top form.

Naruto was picking up the basic stances with ease, and would be ready to start practicing something other then a basic overhead swing or a thrust soon. Tenten was intentionally going slowly with some of his training, just to prolong their time together. She wanted to be sure that she knew Naruto before she could accept any kind of commitment with him, and this was the most painless and least embarrassing way she could think of to do so.

And he seemed to be a pretty good guy. Enthusiastic, for sure, and eager to please.

'Like a less intense version of Lee... No, not less intense. Just... differently focused.'

Whereas Lee was focused on proving that he himself could be a good ninja without ninjutsu or genjutsu, Naruto was focused on proving that he could be Hokage. At first glance, the two goals are similar... But as Tenten thought more, the differences became increasingly more glaring.

For one, Lee's goal was entirely selfish. Not that it was a bad thing, mind you... But it was a solely personal goal that was only directly for his own benefit. In the long run, it could help many people... But that would only be after he had achieved his own goal.

Naruto's, on the other hand, was entirely selfless. It seemed to Tenten that Naruto knew exactly what a Hokage's job was, and to whom it was to. The fact that he openly stated that he wanted to be Hokage so that everyone would acknowledge him, and that it would be his job to defend them... Well, that seemed to be a mighty high goal.

Of course, if Tenten knew that Naruto's goal was also driven by his desire to be the coolest ninja possible, it might temper her opinion a bit.

But then, she DOESN'T know that. All she knows is that Naruto is extravagant in all he does, and goes about his business in as grand a manner that he could.

After all, why else would he kill one of the Mist Seven and Orochimaru himself just to give her a sword?

Naruto was thinking something along similar lines... He was happy he had decided to give Tenten the two swords. At the moment, she was using the Kusanagi blade. Naruto tried to picture himself training with Sakura-chan like this... And for some strange reason, he couldn't.

Because training with her never went like this. It was always more hectic, and angry, and involved Sasuke making snide comments, and Kakashi making fun of them, and generally, Naruto felt he had to prove that he was worth training every minute.

But here? He had nothing to prove. And that was... nice.

Naruto stole a glance over at Tenten, who was setting up some kind of practice dummy up against a tree.

'Man, she sure is different from Sakura-chan... I mean, she puts so much more effort into training. I don't think I've ever even used a training dummy like this...'

Even as Naruto thought that, Tenten bent over to fasten the bottom of the dummy to the tree, not realizing that it gave Naruto a prime view of HER bottom.

Something that caused Naruto to blush a bright red, and caused much cheering from Sex-Drive Naruto.

Naruto quickly turned away before Tenten could straighten up and notice his blushing. If no one had seen it, well, then it would never be spoken of again.

However, someone DID see it.

An ANBU who had been dispatched by the Hokage to collect both Naruto and Tenten for mission purposes arrived on the scene just in time to see Naruto's cheeks turn a rosy red.

Connecting the dots, the ANBU smirked. She'd have some good news to pass around the market-square tonight when she was off duty, for sure.

But for now, she had two ninja to collect.

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"I'M WHAT!? YES! OH GOD YES!"

"Yes, yes, Naruto, did you really doubt you'd get promoted after what you did during the exams? We just received word back from the judges- Both you and Shikamaru were promoted."

"So, Hokage-sama... Why am I here?"

Naruto and Tenten stood in the Hokage's office. Or rather, Tenten stood... Naruto was off to the side dancing in celebration. Tenten was just confused, though.

"Yes, yes... You're here because you're going on a mission, and the other team who will be on the mission with you requested to have the briefing for it as soon as possible."

Before Tenten could ask what the mission was about, and who this other team was, more people entered the room.

"What are you doing here? Jiraiya-sama said he had a mission for my team?"

Sakura was a tad confused, and more then a little angry. She had just spent all of yesterday brooding angrily over this girl, and now she's here delaying her mission briefing? And why was Naruto dancing?

Before anyone could reply, Tsunade entered the room, followed by Kankurou, Temari, and Gaara.

The Hokage, when everyone had entered, began to speak.

"Yes, yes, I called you here- Naruto, get over here and stop dancing!- Because you six are going on a combined mission. One part is a standard protection mission that will be guarding a key personage in Tea Country to ensure that their government remains one that is friendly to Konoha. The other part is an assassination mission of A-ranked Missing-nin, Rokushou Aoi..."

Author's Notes: And the group dynamic is shifting ever so closer to Naruto figuring out that maybe there's something going on between him and Tenten. Maybe. Possibly. It could happen.

Sakura will have a prime opportunity to figure out what she wants, and what she's going to do to get it in the next chapter. For those who are unsure, Team Baki, Naruto, Sakura, and Tenten (replacing Sasuke at Jiraiya's special request) are being sent with Jiraiya and Tsunade to defend Idate and kill Aoi. At the same time, 4 Akatsuki are being dispatched to capture two jinchuriki.

Fun times to be had for all.

Yeah, I made Naruto a Chuunin… After killing Orochimaru, it's the least they could do. I just felt he deserved it.

Sasuke will come back into the story after the Aoi arc is done, btw. Most of the other genin don't really play a big role in this story, though.

I love writing this Hinata, if ya couldn't tell. I definitely don't want it to come across as me bashing her, but then, its fun to see her plans get foiled, and for her to come up with new ones. And her employing her sister and cousin as 'spies' might even impress Hiashi. Who knows? I like writing him, too, I found out this chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A heated debate raged through the Hokage's office, both sides shouting down their opponents in an effort to make their opinion known, and disprove the saying that 'Being the loudest doesn't make you right'.

"Look, Naruto has clearly shown that he's willing to go to extravagant lengths to impress this Tenten girl. I believe if he is informed of the presence of the Raijen no Ken, we will have a guaranteed success!"

Well, it really wasn't much of a screaming fight, as the Hokage only ever got into those over things that were personally important to him. Banning the sale of Icha Icha in Konoha, yes. Informing Naruto of some extra mission detail, no.

"And I keep on telling ya, Sarutobi-sensei, that the brat has no clue what the heck is going on! If ya force him into that position, though, of doing this stuff for some girl, he might start fighting it out of sheer stubbornness! And I won't let all my hard work on Icha Icha swords go to waste!"

Jiraiya, on the other hand, got into heated arguments all the freakin time, usually about some form of his perversion or other. However, he wasn't angry here... merely annoyed.

Both turned to Tsunade, as a seemingly neutral third party who hadn't said a word as of yet.

Tsunade shrugged.

Thus renewing the cycle of pointless arguing.

In the end, Jiraiya won out. Mainly because it was a rather stupid argument and Sarutobi finally got sick of it.

That didn't stop Jiraiya from acting like he'd won something important, though.

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"So, all 6 of us will be assigned to defend our client's runner, and if this Aoi fellow attacks, 3 of us will pursue while the other 3 continue to defend him? Isn't that a little... overkill?"

Most of the children were confused at the mission. It didn't make much sense, the way it was setup. It was a huge waste of resources, sending 6 genin/chuunin, and the 2 Sannin remaining, on what could easily be accomplished by just one team.

Temari looked around the room, trying to gauge the other ninja's reactions. All of them seemed either curious or bored. Those feelings were amplified by Sarutobi's mysterious response.

"We expect there to be several... complications, to the mission. Just think of the extra 3 people being sent as backup in advance."

'Complications enough to interfere with a mission with Gaara, much less two of the Sannin? What the hell are they sending us into?'

No more was forthcoming, though, so all went their own ways to prepare for the mission.

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"So... It seems as if finally my old home will be sending ninja after me, eh? Well, it's not anything I haven't prepared for."

Rokushou Aoi had just received word from one of his spies that Konoha had accepted missions to both kill him, and to defend that idiot Idate.

He was rather confident... After all, he had the Raijin. There weren't many that could stand up to that.

However, when he got to the part of the message on who was being sent... Well, he was nervous.

Ok, he nearly wet his pants.

"Tsunade AND Jiraiya? AND Gaara of the Desert? AND UZUMAKI NARUTO!? My God... I'm fucked. No... I can't think like that. I can plan around this. The Sannin have exploitable weaknesses... Yes, I think that I can handle this..."

Regaining full bladder control, Aoi began to pace around his room. The pacing grew increasingly frenzied, until he plopped himself back down in his chair and pulled out a magazine from under his desk.

"No, No, I have to prepare... I can pull through this..."

Thus Aoi went back to his last minute plotting, to be sure that he wouldn't have to fight anyone that could probably kill him with ease.

'Yes... I just need to lay a few traps...'

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Sasuke awoke, bright and early.

Today, he knew, was a good day.

Many would wonder why he would be almost happy, when he had just been left behind for a mission with his team.

Many would then realize that this meant he could train in peace, without Sakura or Naruto around to annoy him.

Yes... Today was a good day.

Or it would have been... If the agreement to let Jiraiya take Tenten along hadn't had a stipulation attached to it.

Gai did enjoy awakening the flames of youth in young people, after all... And he felt that Sasuke was long past the point where he should be completely flaming.

And yes, that IS how Gai phrased it when he said it to Jiraiya. And no, he did not understand why Jiraiya cracked up laughing.

So when Sasuke left his house, almost humming to himself at the incredibly peaceful lack of noise, he was promptly ambushed and dragged away by Gai, to be trained to be flaming.

And if he failed to be even mildly full of youth... He'd have to run a circuit around Konoha. On his hands.

Today completely sucked.

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It was to the surprise of those gathered for the mission that Naruto and Kankurou managed to hit it off with relative ease. Most would think that they wouldn't get along, seeing how Naruto was annoying, and Kankurou was an asshole.

But, Naruto made a comment about how cool that whole puppet combat thing looked like, and the conversation managed to stay on ninja tools for a while.

Odd, how talking about various ways to use children's' toys to kill people could be considered normal conversation.

The teams were in no rush to make it to Tea Country, and thus lazily (for ninjas, that is) made their way on foot.

Tsunade was in the front, Jiraiya was in the back, and the two teams were spread out along the middle.

Naruto and Kankurou were having their conversation up near the front. This caused all sorts of awkwardness for both Sakura and Tenten, though, as neither really wanted to hang out with the Sand-nin (both having some rather bad memories of these ones in particular), and both only really knew Naruto out of the group.

Temari, however, felt that now was about time to size up the competition.

-5 minutes later-

"Woohoo! Damn, pull that hair! Did you see that? Woah, I haven't seen a catfight this intense in years!"

Jiraiya cheered, as Tsunade laughed. Kankurou also was whistling and catcalling. Naruto stood, gaping in awe at the sight he had just witnessed. And, oddly enough, it was Gaara who broke the whole thing up.

"Ya don't see that sort of thing everyday! Go for the pants!"

-Flashback 4 minutes 30 seconds-

It sort of went down like this.

Temari walks over to Sakura and Tenten.

Temari greets the two rather snootily, asking how they ever got a chance to train in a tree-hugging village like Konoha.

Sakura makes a rather cautious reply, bordering on the polite, about how it must be much easier to live in the forest then out in the desert.

Temari replies with a derogatory comment about how such easy living must erode their fighting ability, and in particular refers to Tenten's skills in the chuunin exams.

Tenten, offended, makes a reply about Temari all but losing to Shikamaru, the laziest asshole to graduate from Konoha since the last Nara had attended.

Temari, nose stuck up in the air, made note of the fact that if SHE nearly lost to the guy, Tenten would have got her ass beaten.

Sakura piped up, saying they should both just stop insulting each other.

Temari made a comment about Sakura's hair, likening it to that of a prostitute she had once seen.

Sakura jumped Temari. After a few moments, Sakura dragged Tenten in, too.

Cue cheering from the men.

It wasn't even a ninja fight, really. Temari never had a chance to draw her fan, and instinctively lashed out with her nails. Sakura didn't really have much Taijutsu to speak of anyway, and Tenten didn't even think to draw a kunai or sword on her own 'teammates'.

No, instead there was just hair pulling and clothes ripping and whatnot... The kind of thing that girls not trained to kill would do.

And, surprisingly... It was Sakura who came out on top.

I mean, it's not like Temari ever fought with her brothers when they were little... They were both younger then her, and Gaara scared her far too much to even want to have pretend violence around him.

Tenten, however, did have experience with this type of fighting... But she was just overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity Sakura summoned up out of nowhere.

Inner Sakura had been on the verge of breaking out and killing Tenten for days, now, for some offense or another (none that Sakura would admit to, at least).

But then, in the middle of Sakura clawing at Temari's eyes... Sand appeared out of nowhere, pulling them all apart.

And revealing the fact there were now, amongst bruises and scratches that would fade quickly, many tears in all of their clothing.

Yes, it was a good day to be a young man (or a creepy old pervert), for sure.

All the girls had different reactions when they got a hold of themselves.

Sakura, still in the grips of an Inner-Sakura rage, was ready to start round 2. Luckily (Or unluckily, really), Gaara's sand put a stop to that.

Tenten, after being on the receiving end of Inner Sakura's onslaught, was quite dazed and confused. Her pants were oddly shredded around the thighs, as if someone had raked their nails up and down her legs. Well, actually, that IS what happened... Sakura had heard a few years ago that Sasuke liked girls with a manicure, and thus had been filing her nails for years.

Temari was just plain out shocked. Her clothes had also taken a beating, though hers were more around her shoulders then anywhere else.

THAT was not what she had expected to happen, that's for sure.

After being pulled apart by tendrils of sand, all three girls seem to remember themselves.

A choking sound was heard, off to the side. All three girls turned as one, and saw the source of the noise.

Naruto stood, eye's bulging, face bright red, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. And, after all the girls turned towards him, the last thread of fabric that had managed to hold the top part of Temari's outfit together gave way, falling forward and revealing...

Naruto passed out.

Naruto's mind came to, with someone clapping in front of his face.

"Yo! Hello? What the fuck happened to you, man? You just blanked out on me."

Naruto shook his head, and looked around.

Everything was normal, and more importantly, everyone seemed fully clothed.

Kankurou, the person who had all but slapped Naruto a second ago, kept on speaking.

"You just spaced out there for a good five minutes, man... What the fuck were you doing?"

Naruto could do no more then shrug, wondering why such a hot-err, odd scene played through his imagination like that so vividly.

He certainly had never done something like that before, and while he certainly didn't object to the daydream, wondered why it happened now. Though, now that he thought about it, it wouldn't make much sense for Sakura to win a fight like that, would it?

But then, Naruto realized, if Sakura was the one he liked, why was he fantasizing about Temari losing her shirt?

Perched invisibly on Naruto's head, Sex-Drive Naruto could only cackle as his influence continued to grow.

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The race was going well. The little misunderstanding if Idate going the wrong way was easily explained, and that rain genin team was decimated with ease, since they were outnumbered two to one (and was fighting several foes FAR outside their weight class). Gaara held their little ship together, and there wasn't a problem.

Well, actually, there was a problem.

See, Tsunade had gone missing hours before. And then Jiraiya had, too. No one thought much of it (because none of them expected to need them on top of there already absurdly large team, anyway), though.

Tsunade had gone off to place her bets. She had intended to come right back... But then she ran into someone who just happened to be talking about a brand new casino that opened up. A new casino that happened to cater more to tourists, and less to serious gamblers.

The person then speculated loudly that a seasoned pro at cards could make quite a bit of money easily.

Tsunade decided that just maybe she had some more time to spare.

Of course, the person was a plant by Aoi, and sure, there WAS a casino there, but it actually tended to boast the exact opposite clientele then Tsunade expected- Only serious card-sharks tended to play there. Aoi figured that Tsunade, expecting easy wins, would stubbornly stick it out for hours on end just out of pride.

Jiraiya found himself approached by women near nonstop from the second they entered the village the race was starting from.

Literally. Nonstop. The second he stopped talking to one, a new one appeared. Jiraiya, for a short while, was in heaven.

Then he realized what was going on. And, as much as he liked talking, and other related activities, with women... He had more important things to do.

So he played along with it. One Jiraiya-Kage Bunshin later and he was off to secretly follow after the teams someone was trying to separate him from.

But Aoi didn't know that. All Aoi knew was that Jiraiya and Tsunade were both being distracted.

Not only that, but Gaara, the next most dangerous person present, was out in the middle of the water, holding a boat together with sand. A boat that needed to keep on going if they wanted to win the race.

NOW was the time for him to strike. NOW was the time for him to slay that evil sword-thief, Uzumaki Naruto, in the name of Great Justice!

He could easily attack Naruto from a distance... He had numerous ranged techniques (though most did involve an umbrella... Silly, really, but it was the thing he was expected to do in Rain now), after all.

But no, he was a Villain. He had to do things a certain way. And he had gone to the trouble to set this trap for a while now... Might as well make it so he could gloat a bit before killing Naruto, instead of having to do it fast and from a distance, while worrying that the evil Sand-Demon might decide to kill him first.

No, he needed to separate Naruto from everyone else.

And he knew just the way.

Thus, while the broken ship miraculously sailed on... Aoi moved swiftly through the water, following behind.

He was aware of the rumors about Naruto. He knew what Naruto did with the swords he stole.

So Aoi was going to steal something from Naruto, before killing him.

With a great splash, Aoi flew out of the water, snatched Tenten from her place at the bow of the ship, and shunshined away. The stunned teams watched him reappear on the shore, before running into the woods.

And Naruto, without a second thought, leapt onto the water, running after him.

An even greater surprise was that Gaara promptly crashed the ship back to land, directed Kankurou and a confused Sakura to continue to defend Idate, and dragged Temari with him after Naruto.

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"So when do we nab the kid, eh? I just want to get him, knock him out, and get out, as soon as possible."

"With this Jinchuriki's background, that sounds like the preferred plan, Kisame. A drawn out battle will not be to our advantage."

Kisame and Itachi lurked, preparing to capture Gaara soon. Itachi, due to the fact that he was a good deal stealthier then Kisame, had been the one making frequent trips to observe Gaara and to ensure that he would be in place for them to trap.

However, Itachi had a rather one track mind. He'd do what it takes to get his current goal, and ignore all else.

So, when Itachi saw Gaara in the presence of Naruto... He just ignored it. After all, Naruto wasn't his business anymore. Let Deidara deal with that... It wasn't his problem.

But Itachi had just seen Gaara run into the woods... So he and Kisame would follow. Woods were perfect for kidnapping, or so he had read in the latest issue of Missing-Nin Monthly.

"Hey, at least we don't have to worry about this target stealing our stuff, right?"

"Hn."

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Naruto arrived in a clearing, only to stumble to a stop.

Sure, he saw Aoi, his current nemesis... The man was cackling evilly, on the opposite side of the clearing.

No, what had him slow to a stop was the fact that someone had placed a huge vat of some weird green substance in the middle of the woods. Even stranger, someone had set up some sort of elaborate rope and pulley system that would raise or lower someone or something into the huge vat of greenshit.

And, tied to the end of the rope, was Tenten.

'What the heck?'

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Isn't it obvious? You can either surrender and give up to me the swords you stole, or we can fight... And as we fight, Lover-Girl here will fall into this acid, and die!"

Aoi then started cackling to himself again, glad that he had kept his subscription to Missing-Nin Monthly. He never would have thought to use the old 'Vat of Acid' trick on his own. Sure, it didn't have a high success rate... But Aoi was confident that if Naruto was willing to go to the lengths he had to get weaponry for this girl, surely he'd be willing to then give them up in turn for her safe release.

And he figured that the rumors must be wrong or missing details, because he couldn't find a single sword on the girl's person. It didn't even occur to him to check her scrolls, though (not that he had the time to, though).

So Aoi expected that Naruto had them around somewhere, and must just use as his main sword the one strapped to his back. One Aoi recognized as the other major chakra blade to come out of Konoha.

'It'd almost be like completing the set', he thought with a grin.

But Aoi made a mistake.

Well, asides from trusting a magazine for missing-nins, by missing-nins... That sort of thing had to be made to cut down on their own competition, so to speak.

See, he expected Naruto to act like the Good Guy, which would either involve attacking him, or surrendering.

Never once did he expect that Naruto would go straight for the girl... It simply didn't occur to him that he himself wasn't the thing Naruto was most worried about.

So he barely had the time to activate Raijin before Naruto leapt OVER the vat, sliced Tenten free, tossed her to safety, and landed with his sword drawn.

Aoi's thoughts were along the lines of 'God fucking damnit! I knew I should have gone with the pit of tigers!' He quickly activated the Raijin, but didn't have much time to do more then that.

Tenten's thoughts were progressing quite nicely down the path of 'Naruto certainly seems the type to not let go.' Only, in her mind, more romantically phrased, and Naruto looked taller.

Naruto's thoughts, if they had to be represented, would have Sword-Naruto appear, toss Sex-Drive Naruto to the side, and start yelling about how he was going to kick Aoi's ass.

Because he's the future Hokage. Dattebayo, bitch.

And with that, Naruto lunged forward, and began the fight.

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The fight was rather short. Aoi leapt to the side of Naruto's first swing, causing Naruto to stumble into a roll as he landed. Aoi came down with an over-hand slice, and Naruto swung his sword upwards as he recovered from his roll.

Several people arrived simultaneously. First, Gaara appeared with Temari in tow.

He was a tad disappointed that he didn't have a chance to put Temari in danger for Naruto to rescue, but at least it looked like maybe he'd have the chance to kill someone. If only his sister had thought to let herself get captured, then maybe she'd be the one Naruto would recognize?

Gaara sighed over his sister's inability to catch herself a man. But he supposed that this was the sort of thing he was there to help her with, wasn't it?

When the two swords clashed, a surprising reaction occurred- Both of the swords were violently repelled away. For Naruto, it wasn't such a big deal. Part of Tenten's training was to make sure he learned to never, ever drop his weapon, under any circumstance. Holding on to your weapon was key for any melee weapon user.

Aoi, though... He wasn't used to having a tight grip on the Raijin. There wasn't much that the sword just didn't slice through, and he found that he was able to maneuver it around better if he held it looser. It let him twirl it about in crazy patterns that looked rather cool, even though they were nearly as dangerous for his opponents as they were for him.

So while Naruto was blasted back onto his knees... Aoi was knocked back into a tree, and the Raijin was sent flying through the air, deactivated the second it left Aoi's hand.

It was then that the remaining people showed up. Behind Gaara Deidara appeared... And in front of Naruto, Kisame and Itachi did.

Naruto didn't notice immediately... He was following the Raijin (which was one of the coolest things he had ever seen) slowly arc through the sky... To land directly into one Hoshigake Kisame's hands.

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'Ok Kisame, get your act together. Aren't you known as the Daimyo-killer? Aren't you feared far and wide for your sword skills? Damnit, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonit, I can beat the shit out of anyone who says otherwise! I just gotta keep my cool...'

Kisame had been expecting to find Gaara fighting some random ninja in the clearing.

He opened his mouth to spout some bad-ass line to instill fear into his opponent, gesturing with his hand... only to freeze, seeing who was in the clearing with him.

That was when the Raijen no Ken landed in his hand.

Kisame, frozen, looked down at his hand, not rational enough to even recognize what he was holding.

He looked back up, gaping at Naruto... Naruto was glaring at him rather fiercely (more of a holdover from his anger at Aoi then anything else), and Kisame turned an even paler shade of blue.

Then he looked back down, and realized what he was holding.

'Me plus SuperSword plus Naruto equals OMFGRUNAWAY!'

Acting on his instincts, Kisame screamed like a little girl, tossed the Raijin into the air, and ran away.

Itachi paused for a moment, sighing at his partner's incompetence.

'He could not even manage a shunshin, but instead actually fled on foot? Perhaps he is not a suitable partner for me after all...'

And, on that note, Itachi followed.

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At the same time this was happening, Gaara turned to Deidara. Then he turned back to Temari, and swiftly knocked her out. Picking her up, he addressed the missing-nin.

"You. Kidnap my sister, so Uzumaki can rescue her."

Deidara paused for a moment, stunned by the demand. It DID sound like a good idea to him (after all, he had just read that article about kidnapping people close to your target in Missing-Nin Monthly).

But then, behind Gaara, Jiraiya appeared, dragging Tsunade behind him. Jiraiya looked directly at Deidara, and just drew a line across his neck.

Deidara gulped. Even with Sasori hidden, ready to strike... They couldn't take out Jiraiya and Tsunade together, much less Jiraiya, Tsunade, AND Gaara.

"Err... No thanks. I'm just... passing through, yeah. Bye!"

Watching the Akatsuki member go, Gaara could only sigh... This would be harder then he thought, if the bad guys (And Gaara did recognize the cloak the guy was wearing) even refused to kidnap his sister when he offered her to them! Clearly, he'd have to work with Temari on this.

He knew his sister liked her independence, but if she was going to win herself a man, she'd have to have some give and take in who gets to maim people for her pleasure, or whatever it was normal people did to show affection.

Naruto walked over, and picked up the Raijin. He turned to Aoi, who was trying to quietly slip away. Aoi froze, realizing he was caught.

It had been a stupidly short battle. Naruto had won purely by luck. However... To Aoi, it didn't seem like that. To him, it seemed as if Naruto had just swatted him away, disarming him with only one movement. How could he have known that such a violent reaction would happen when two such blades met? No, to him it seemed like Naruto just swatted him like a fly.

Not to mention that both of the Sannin he thought he had distracted had appeared.

So, there wasn't much he could do. He had to surrender.

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Naruto made his way over to Tenten, who had been watching the fight rapturously. She, too, hadn't realized what had happened; only that Naruto defeated the jounin with one attack.

Not only that, but he had proven that he wasn't even mildly exaggerating that there was an S-Rank missing-nin who was afraid of him. If anything, he had underplayed it. The fact that Uchiha Itachi had also run... Well, Tenten decided that enough was enough; if there was anything else Naruto needed to prove to her, she couldn't think of what it was.

Then she saw Naruto approaching her, with the Raijin in his hand.

Every other time he had done this... Well, the sword had ended up with her.

Tenten started to smile. The smile grew as Naruto got closer, and then turned into a downright mischievous one.

And when Naruto got close enough... She glomped him again, knocking him to the ground.

"Thanks, Naruto! I don't know how I could ever repay you ANOTHER priceless gift... But you deserve this."

And she gave him a light peck on the cheek.

Naruto, completely not expecting this, froze up. He had no clue where to go next with this. He had some clue WHY she might do it (After all, he was the awesome ninja who had just rescued her from some asshole, and girls tended to like that), but he just couldn't think of the appropriate response.

'Kiss her back!'

... What?

'Take off her shirt! Get your hands up there! Yeah, you know you want to!'

Naruto's face grew confused. However, he noticed that Tenten started to look really angry.

Then he noticed Ero-Sennin standing off to the side, stage-whispering him those things, and Tsunade approaching to kick the shit out of him.

The mood completely ruined, he looked down at the Raijin, and then handed it over to Tenten, who he supposed he probably would have ended up giving it to in the first place. After all, if the Raijin and White Fang reacted like that together, he didn't want to use 'em both, that's for sure.

And then a thought hit him.

"Hey, Gaara... If you and Temari are here... Where are Idate, Sakura, and Kankurou?"

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Where indeed were Sakura and Kankurou?

The race was cake, really... Sakura and Kankurou just ran alongside Idate, wondering what the heck had just happened.

Well, Kankurou was... Sakura was pondering Deeper Thoughts.

Sakura found herself angry that she was where she was now... Not because she didn't like the mission, but that both those other girls were with Naruto, where she wasn't able to watch him and make sure they didn't try something with him.

After all, it wouldn't do to have some girl snatch him up, use him, and toss him to the side. Sakura could not consciously think up any reason a girl might want to stay with Naruto for any real length of time... Not when there were so many better picks out there.

'Naruto is so annoying, with the way he won't shut up, and always wears orange! That stupid jutsu of his... It's an insult to girls everywhere! And the way he always is shouting, and making promises... but at least you know he'll always keep his promises. And the way he treats people he cares about so nicely... Like they're the most important thing in the world...'

Sakura stumbled to a stop for a second, before noticing that the boys were gaining a lead on her.

'Wait, what am I thinking? I can't possibly be thinking about Naruto like... that. Can I? But what about Sasuke?'

Upping the pace, Sakura managed to catch up with Kankurou and Idate, and all 3 were nearing the finish line.

'What is it I want? Why am I so angry at those two ska-err, why the heck am I thinking of them as skanks? Because of how they make their interest in Naruto so obvious? I couldn't be... jealous of them, could I?'

And with that revelation, Sakura DID come to a stop.

Luckily, it was on the other side of the finish line.

Not that any of the civilians watching saw her... She and Kankurou were in the shadows, out of sight.

'It would explain why I'm so angry at the two... It's like their using Naruto, or something. They only like him because he killed Orochimaru and gives out those awesome swords... They probably don't even know the real him! The annoying goofball who'll do anything for you if you ask him...'

Sakura, ever the determined girl when it came to a guy she wanted, came to a decision.

'If a girl is going to get Naruto, it better be a girl that will appreciate him... And one that isn't just manipulating him into liking her... It'll be a girl he actually likes. And I'm the only one that fits that description!'

Thrusting her fist into the air, Sakura whooped in glee.

"Oh, you better believe I'm going to cash in on all those date offers, Naruto! And I'll even go to that ramen stand you like so much for a few of them!"

Sakura noticed a sudden lull fall all around her. Still holding her pose, she looked around, and noticed everyone in the area staring at her strangely.

"I, err, didn't shout that out loud, did I?"

The only response she got was Kankurou mumbling under his breath about how he might just need to invest in some orange face paint or something, with the way that kid seems to pick up chicks.

Author's notes: Well, it's been a long time, hasn't it? I've been rather obsessive with my WoW, which has taken up all my time (2 70s and a raiding guild do that). A comment I read today, though, reignited my muse enough to get this out and onto the presses, though.

Plotwise, the girls have all assembled. They all know what they want. Naruto is still in the dark. However, the growing strength of Sex-Drive Naruto will cause him to start to figure out sooner or later…

I don't know if I'm going to get anything new out anytime soon, but this was in definite need of posting.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"And it's best to eat a lighter ramen when you have something bothering you, like vegetable or miso ramen..."

Naruto sighed disconsolately. He fiddled around with his chopsticks, and poked his ramen for a bit.

"Perhaps you would like to talk about whatever is bothering you, Naruto-san?"

It never ceased to amaze those who saw it. In fact, for those in the know it was almost a game- a sport- to catch sight of it. It could happen at any given time on any given day... But whenever Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Hiashi were seen eating together at Ichiraku's ramen stand, people subtly gathered up to watch from the clothing store across the street.

Forgetting, of course, that if he chose to, Hiashi could activate his Byakugan and see right through the clothing racks that said observers were hiding in. Of course, when he DID do such a thing, Hiashi merely reflected back on his childhood, whenever he used to do the same thing to play hide and seek.

It should also be noted that Hide and Seek was the worse game ever to play in the Hyuuga household. Yes, even worse then Yahtzee. Or Hyuuga Monopoly (after all, there was a monopoly for EVERYTHING).

"How did you know something was bothering me, Hiashi? But yeah... I guess you could say I'm having a problem..."

Hiashi could never quite get Naruto to address him in a manner that befits his station. After hearing of how Naruto addressed Tsunade-hime and Jiraiya of the Sannin, he was rather glad that he had never had a nickname bestowed on him, and just let Naruto call him by his given name.

Hiashi took a closer look at Naruto, and nodded sagely.

"Ah, yes... So what exact manner of Woman Trouble might you be having, Naruto-san? After all, the Hyuuga are amongst the manliest of manly men in all of Konoha, and surely my advice could aide you in your time of trouble."

Naruto had to hide a snigger at that. Anyone related to Neji claiming to be manly? Naruto had heard stories from Tenten about the sheer amount of time Neji put into hair care alone...

But thinking about Neji made Naruto think about Tenten, and it brought his problems back to the forefront. And if someone was offering him help, he wasn't gonna say no.

"Well, see, there's this girl I like. Or I liked. I don't even know anymore, and that's the problem! See, I used to be sure she was the one for me, and that I just needed more time and she'd come around and see how awesome I am. But then, there's this other girl... And I just don't know anymore! I mean, I could really see myself with this other girl... But I liked the first girl for so much longer. And I just keep on feeling like I'm forgetting there's a third girl out there, but for the life of me, I can't think of a name... Oh, yeah, and I keep on getting creepy vibes from Gaara's sister. Like, REALLY creepy. Or maybe they're coming from Gaara?"

Naruto felt better after spilling his romantic woes. Many people would be shocked that Naruto was even thinking this deeply about this subject, much less that he'd be able to elucidate them to someone.

Even more so that said person was Hyuuga Hiashi.

Hiashi leaned back in his seat, pondering the question. Truly, such a tangled romantic dilemma could only be solved by a mind equal to the task, and was it not said that the Byakugan brought untold perception to its bearer? This indeed was a question unsuited for someone below Hiashi's own incredible mental prowess.

"Well, Naruto-san, many men find themselves in similar situations... Though usually far less complex. Your devotion to your first love is truly commendable... But sometimes it is best to see what the world has to offer. And let it not be said that making decisions in haste or with incomplete information was ever a good idea. No, it sounds as if you should perhaps explore your relationship with each girl that you have the ability to remember, and see which is best suited to yourself."

Naruto and Teuchi (who had been casually listening in to the conversation... People had begun to come to him looking for gossip, and if this wasn't prime, juicy material, then he didn't know what was!) both turned that over in their heads.

Hiashi patted Naruto on the head, and nodded at him when Naruto looked up, surprised.

"But I must depart... The duties of my clan beckon, and I can no longer put them off. Consider my words, Naruto-san, and with luck your problems will be solved."

Naruto barely paid attention to Hiashi walking away... No, he was lost in thought.

Thought which, if it was to be properly depicted, it would be something like a small scale riot made entirely of Naruto's.

Mini-Naruto's yelled and screamed and fought, shouting their opinions loudly on what Naruto should do, all the while being pseudo-reigned in by an aspect of Naruto that represented his logic, reason, and determination.

'Hokage'-Naruto was trying to get all the other Narutos to shut the fuck up, so they could get something done. All too often, the chaos that reigned in Naruto's mind when left to wander on its own was too much. There was much truth to the statement that Naruto's mind worked best under extreme pressure or guidance... In those cases, only one Naruto usually took charge. But when left to his own devices?

Chaos.

And then, Sex-Drive Naruto just had to go and make it worse.

"Guys! Tell me you understood that! That guy just told us to get with all the girls, and see which was the best at 'it'! That dude's like a major clan leader, or something... This is like official permission to get laid with a bunch of girls at once!"

THAT stunned all the Narutos. Maybe there was something to that whole 'manly' thing Hiashi mentioned?

But, despite the ever-growing strength of Sex-Drive Naruto... Such an act went so far against Naruto's personality, that it was inconceivable that he'd do it.

There were strong supporters for each girl (heck, there were even a few that said he should go for that weird alcoholic girl that was always following him around!), and in the end, Hokage-Naruto began waving around his hat, causing all the Naruto's present to shut up and be lured into to the hypnotic dream of what THEY would look like with that awesome hat, and listen to him.

"It's clear that we can't come to a decision yet... Hiashi was right. We need more information! And no, Sex-Drive, not like that! We need to talk- Just talk, damnit!- to the girls, to feel out- No, that's not what I meant, and you know it!- the situation."

Hokage-Naruto grumbled... It was so much easier just dealing with the loud and/or annoying aspects of his personality... But having an aspect that acted like Jiraiya? That just plain out sucked.

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Hinata pouted in despair. It wasn't fair! Each time she saw Naruto approach, she began to work up her confidence (and not just with her good ol' friends, Jack and Jim and Mr. Morgan, either) to go out and visit Naruto... And each time, her father headed out before she could even reach the door!

It was like he had his own secret spies amongst the Hyuuga, who had a larger vision range then Neji had managed to train!

But... The stand was close enough to the gardens that if Hinata placed Neji on guard of the Sake storage room, Hinata could sneak over and listen in.

And Hinata heard her father's words.

And she didn't need long to figure out what he meant.

'So, as long as Naruto approaches me first, it's ok for me to hug him, and for him to hug me back, and then kiss me, and take off his pants...'

Hinata wiped a trace amount of drool from her lips.

Hinata stood up.

She knew what she had to do.

And she was just drunk enough to have the confidence to go do it!

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Of course, it had to be at that exact moment that Sakura arrived at the scene.

Just as Hinata rounded the corner, and entered the Ramen stand from the left... Just as Naruto stood up from his seat, to leave... Sakura arrived from the right.

And Sakura recoiled from the sudden death glare that Hinata sent her way. Or at least Sakura thought she saw... it disappeared as quickly as she noticed it.

Sakura had spent the last few days thinking up the best possible plan of attack to win Naruto back for herself. Sakura was methodical and meticulous, if nothing else.

So she had plotted. She was pretty sure she still headed the pack, even if Tenten was quickly gaining on her.

What were a few priceless gifts in the face of years of devotion?

Sakura repeated that thought in her mind quite often, to keep her confidence up.

Sakura researched Naruto's habits, to find the perfect time to approach him.

And she found out that such research was completely unnecessary, as he was exactly where she would have expected him to be.

But... What the heck was Hinata doing here?

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"N-N-Naruto-kun..."

"Naruto!"

"Eh? What are you two doing here?"

Hinata, sensing that Sakura would scoop Naruto up here if she didn't step forward, 'stumbled' a little towards Naruto, catching herself on his arm.

"I... I live here."

"Oh."

'Yes... This is going perfect! Now that he puts it together, he'll realize that his favorite place is at my house!'

Sakura wasn't as clueless as Naruto. She could see clear as day what Hinata was trying to do! And she wasn't going to lose out to that weird girl!

So Sakura slipped over to Naruto, and looped her arm through his free one, and tugged lightly.

"Come on, Naruto... We need to, erm, go out and train a bit!"

Now, much could be said about Naruto's cluelessness, especially on subjects of social interaction.

But even he wasn't THAT stupid to not see what that this was not normal behavior for either girl.

Naruto began to look back and forth between the girls, who were almost growling at each other (though, to be fair, it was only scary coming from Sakura... Hinata just couldn't summon up the viciousness necessary to be imposing, threatening, or scary in the least).

And before Naruto could react, someone else walked onto the scene.

Or perhaps stomped would be the more appropriate wording.

"Naruto! Do you even know the unimaginable horrors I've seen while you were out on your stupid mission? Because you had to have your little girlfriend along, I was forced into what must be the worst torture imaginable! I've seen hell... And it's green!"

Unfortunately for the girls, there were some responses that were hardwired into Naruto's subconscious mind, reflexes honed by years of repetition.

When an asshole starts yelling at him, Naruto yells back! And probably gets into a fight! Dattebayo!

And Sasuke was at the top of the charts in Naruto's personal 'Assholes I need to beat up' list.

"What the hell are you talking about? I don't have any say in team assignments... If I did, I wouldn't be on yours!"

However... Neither girl had relinquished their hold on Naruto, a fact that Sasuke quickly noticed.

Sasuke was taken aback... He knew that the Hyuuga girl stalked Naruto, but Sakura was one of HIS fan girls, wasn't she?

And then he noticed that they were glaring at him.

And while he shrugged off Hinata's attempt at intimidation... He was put off by the fires that seemed to light up in Sakura's eyes.

He had no way of knowing that he had set her off with that little 'girlfriend' comment.

Up in the trees, Jiraiya cackled.

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Jiraiya, as was his wont, had once more been following Naruto around, for more material for Icha Icha Swords. The story was actually quite a ways done, with a large amount of the plot completed.

Of course, little episodes like Hiashi's speech ('I never knew he had it in him!') made perfect additions, though.

And now he had other girls competing for him, AND his rival appears?

This was fucking literary gold!

"Oh, don't be so jealous that you didn't get to go on the mission, Sasuke... Naruto only took out an A rank missing-nin, and scared off two S-ranks... You didn't miss THAT much."

Indeed, it seemed as if that little Haruno girl had done a complete 180 on her love interests.

And the look of dread that appeared on Sasuke's face was hilarious too.

"Two... Two S-ranks missing nins?"

Jiraiya had to stifle another cackle as he realized where the conversation was going, and how he knew the littlest Uchiha would react.

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"Oh yeah, I never got a chance to tell you about that, did I? Yeah, I'm so awesome that S-rank ninja run away from me!"

Sasuke choked back a gasp... No! He had thought Naruto had just been joking when he heard him that one time in the restaurant!

"... Do you know who they were?"

Naruto's face lit up gleefully.

"Of course! One of them was a giant fish dude..."

'Ok, one down... Unless Itachi has gone through a massive physical change, that's not him.'

"... And the other guy was your brother!"

Thunk.

"Uhh... Sasuke? You ok?"

It seemed as if the mere thought of his brother- Uchiha fucking Itachi!- running in terror for Naruto was too much for Sasuke to deal with.

"I guess I'm just so awesome that Sasuke can't handle it?"

Hinata gently tugged Naruto's arm.

"I... I have some ramen in my house... 'Special' Ramen... For you..."

'Special' Ramen that could be classified as 'Grey Goose Vodka' if Naruto became curious and actually asked Hinata what the contents were.

In other words, it was Ramen spiked with Vodka.

Yummy.

As Naruto's eyes lit up about the proposition of 'Special' Ramen, Sakura pulled on his other arm.

"Come on, Naruto! You just ate, and we need to go train! Don't you want to train with me?"

That, too, was tempting. After all, Sakura had never wanted to train with him before...

But... Special Ramen sounded so intriguing...

Before he could make a decision, a new person entered the scene.

"Uzumaki. My sister has gone missing. I need you to help me find her."

"What?? What the hell are you talking about, Gaara?"

And somehow, everyone missed Jiraiya falling out of the tree in shock that he hadn't noticed a fucking Jinchuriki hiding in the same tree as him.

Luckily, though, all eyes were on Gaara, and Jiraiya was able to rehide himself.

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Gaara had, that morning, decided to implement his next plan to aide his sister in her current endeavor.

He had, before the sun rose, woke her up, knocked her unconscious, and tied her up in the woods.

Waiting for an opportune time, Gaara had been watching from the same tree that Jiraiya was in, for the perfect moment to get Naruto to go after his sister.

It was indeed a good way for Naruto to save his sister from some nonsense threat, and build the foundations of a relationship.

"My sister was not there this morning. I have reason to believe she's out in the woods. You must find her."

Sadly... Gaara had taken too long.

"Um... Gaara, your sister is over there. And she looks pretty pissed off."

Gaara turned, to see his sister stalking angrily over to him.

'Perhaps I should not have awoken her before knocking her out? But I had to make sure she was unconscious...'

And as Temari dragged Gaara away from the scene, stating that the two 'needed to have a talk', Gaara could only lament at his sisters complete lack of understanding of the subtleties necessary to get herself a man... Why hadn't she just stayed put?

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"That was... weird."

"Y-Yes... Now, about that 'Special Ramen'..."

"No way, Hinata! He needs to come train with me!"

Before the scene could resume, though... Tenten arrived on the scene.

And Jiraiya once more thanked God for his students' ability to generate perfect timing.

"Hey, Naruto... Hokage-sama sent me to fetch you for an important discussion... Apparently he knew we were planning on another lesson this morning, or something."

Naruto nodded, and disengaged his arms from the two stunned girls.

Both of whom were stunned for the same reason, one that Sakura vocalized.

"Lesson? What on earth are you teaching Naruto?"

Tenten, who had begun to walk back the way she came, and winked over her shoulder...

"Why, the proper use of his sword, of course!"

... And both Sakura's and Hinata's world crashed down around them.

'That hussy is teaching Naruto WHAT?!'

But, before either could demand a further explanation, both Naruto and Tenten were gone.

And boy, did Teuchi have amazing gossip THAT day.

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"Ah, yes, thank you for getting him so promptly, Tenten... You may go now."

"What the heck do ya want to talk to me about, Old Man?"

After waiting for Tenten to leave the room (confused at why the Hokage had even sent her for Naruto if she wasn't even supposed to stick around), Sarutobi stood up.

"Naruto... We have received word different Akatsuki have been assigned to you. Apparently, the failure of Hoshigake Kisame and Uchiha Itachi have driven the leader to assign more teams on you then previous... And what's worse, we aren't even sure which ones he's sending..."

"Aww... Well, I guess that means I have whole new S-rank ninja to defeat, eh?"

"Um... I suppose that's on way to look at it, Naruto..."

'But I wish we just knew which people were being assigned to Naruto's capture, so we could better prepare...'

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"Well, this is a huge disappointment, isn't it? Kisame, do you have ANY words for your rampant failures?"

"Pain-sama... You... You know what would happen if I should lose Samehada... I simply can't risk it!"

Pain sighed. He was indeed informed by Kisame about what should happen if he lost his sword, and he wouldn't wish THAT fate upon any man.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself, then, Deidara? You failed to capture the Jinchuriki, too!"

"Well, yeah, but he had both Tsunade and Jiraiya with him, yeah!"

'Hmm... That is indeed troubling news... Those two are quite dangerous...'

"Well then, it seems as if we must send out more men, to better handle the situation. And no, they won't include you, Kisame, so you can relax."

And thus the most evil leader of the most evil organization in all the elemental countries (a title which defaulted to him after Orochimaru was squished) plotted his most diabolical plot yet...

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"Gaara, what has gotten into you lately? You've been acting... different."

Temari, on escaping out of the woods, had built herself up into a truly impressive righteous feminine rage. How DARE Gaara knock her out and leave her tied up in the woods? And that wasn't the first time he'd knocked her out randomly lately, either!

But, after finally finding Gaara, the wind was swiftly removed from her sails. After pulling Gaara away, and getting him alone, she had been about to lay into him like she did Kankurou.

And then she looked him in the eyes, and suddenly remembered that Gaara had a habit of randomly squishing anyone with sand that yelled at him, much less tried to drag him anywhere.

Thus, the mild question starting the conversation, instead of loud ranting.

"I do what I must, Temari... I do what I must."

To Temari, time seemed to slow down, as Gaara lifted his hand to point at her.

And the last thought she had before Gaara rendered her unconscious once more was, 'Well, I should have seen this coming...'.'

Creating a sand clone to carry Temari, Gaara directing the clone to head out as far into the woods as it could, before turning around himself and once more searching out Uzumaki, to convince him of the dire emergency of someone trying to impersonate his sister, after kidnapping her.

'Truly, an epic mission where they shall bond over Naruto's rescuing of her. Now, I just need to find some villains to set up to capture her...'

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"Yes... I know how to handle this..."

After 30 minutes of dastardly plotting intermingled with sinister laughter (and intermittent games of Yahtzee amongst those too bored to take part in the general evil atmosphere... Then again, playing Yahtzee might actually be considered a minor evil in and of itself) the stupendously evil Akatsuki leader arose from his seat in the shadows.

"Hidan and Kakuzu are the next logical choices to send after the Nine-tails... But to ensure that they do not fail, I will send another with them."

Now, let it be known that the Akatsuki lair is a fairly informal place. Formal rules and governance were something that chafed most missing nins, and its generally best not to irritate the ones you have working and living with you.

It should also be known that Pain wasn't one of the people who was currently at said lair, but instead was somewhere in Rain, for some reason or other.

So when Pain said, "YOU will accompany them on their mission, to help ensure success," Pain had, in fact, been pointing to Itachi. After all, Itachi was generally the most competent of his men, and it's not like his partners would run away screaming from the current target (justified as it may be... Pain shuddered at that thought).

After Pain ended the jutsu he was using to 'be' in the lair for the meeting, silence ensued.

Because, during the few seconds that Pain had looked away before pointing, Tobi, the newest recruit who had sort of wandered into the lair one day 'looking for a job', had just entered the room and stepped in front of Itachi, holding the Akatsuki version of Monopoly.

You could only take so much Yahtzee at one time, after all. And Kakuzu had thought there might be money in such an endeavor.

So, after a huge fit of cursing on the parts of both Hidan and Kakuzu, the two left, dragging along their 'third team member', someone they hadn't even known to be in the draft pool.

And yet, all was going according to Tobi's plan...

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Hinata stared at Sakura.

Sakura glared back at Hinata.

Hinata started to shrink back, and look down at her feet.

Sakura was happy that she was able to intimidate SOMEBODY around here, at least.

Hinata continued to look down... But then remembered her personal flask, strapped to her left thigh.

Hinata's eyes rose up to meet Sakura's, and Sakura proceeded to be mildly disturbed by Hinata reaching into her pants to pull out some sort of alcohol.

And begin sipping it.

A tumbleweed rolled through Ichiraku's, between the two young ladies.

And then a shout was heard from the trees.

"Are you going to fight or what? Get to the clothes ripping!"

Sakura's eyes began to glow with Female Rage... That is, until Hinata decided to act on Jiraiya's (who had decided to stay on and watch the scene) catcall.

Hinata pounced Sakura, in a style that could be seriously likened to an exuberant tiger.

Much shrieking and scratching and hair pulling ensued.

And thus Naruto, followed by Tenten, arrived onto the scene of a REAL catfight, and not just one he dreamed up...

Author's Notes: And now the story begins its ascent to the climax! Well, there is a good bit of story left, but it's getting there.

More mysterious comments have been made about Kisame and his sword. What terrible fate might befall him if he loses it? Who knows? Well, besides me, that is…

Tobi has made the scene, bringing his own unique brand of 'evil' to the table. Expect a Tobi that is like an evil version of the one from "The Great Landscaping Crisis"… I'm pretty sure I'm responsible for the crazy 'Pot and Spoon' Tobi with that story, and you might not get all the jokes I'm going to make about him if you aren't familiar with that take on him.

And, if you can't tell, I hate Yahtzee.


	9. Chapter 9

Edit: Some people seemed confused about this, and didn't read the Author's Notes at the bottom, so I'll put it here. I did not write the Omake, nor is it part of the actual Story. It also is a major reference to Comedity, a webcomic that I was introduced to in the process of writing this story. I repeat, the Omake is NOT part of the story.

Chapter 9

"... Wow."

Naruto had no idea what more to say.

"Let go of my hair, bitch!"

It was a scene out of many a lads dreams.

"Y-you let go of m-my hair first, s-sk-skank!"

Naruto pinched himself, to ensure this time wasn't some sort of daydream. Luckily, Tenten missed him doing that, as she was staring at the fight, too.

"Argh! That was a really expensive shirt! You're going to pay for ripping it!"

Naruto's eyes grew wider, as Sakura vengefully tore open the front of Hinata's baggy sweatshirt, bearing Hinata's rather... impressive... chest to open air. With only a mesh covering, not much was left to the imagination.

Hearing Naruto gulp, Tenten finally got a hold of her, and looked over at him.

"Stop drooling, Naruto!"

At that, the two wrestling girls froze.

Whilst maintaining their pose, both girls slowly turned to face Naruto. Hinata was on her back with Sakura straddling her, one hand pulling back on Sakura's hair, the other wrestling with Sakura's free hand. Free hand being the one that WASN'T tearing open Hinata's jacket.

Jiraiya's pen continued scribbling, chronicling this magical moment in a boys life... The first time he witnessed a knockdown, drag-out, clothes-ripping catfight. It brought a tear to his eye, knowing his young apprentice was learning so much so early in his life.

The pause in action lasted a good 5 seconds, where all the girls stared at Naruto, and Naruto stared at the girls. Naruto felt an odd clarity flash through his mind.

Somehow, this moment just seemed oh-so-right, in a way that even five minutes ago Naruto would have vehemently denied. In this odd moment, all Naruto could really do was just gape, gape at the two girls frozen in such a violent, yet sexual pose.

Well, ok, he was just staring at Hinata's chest. But can you blame him? Really?

I didn't think so.

The silence was broken by a surprisingly ferocious Hinata, who apparently had finally managed to process that yes, Sakura had ruined her favorite jacket.

Said jackets were a staple of Hinata's wardrobe, letting her conceal many a useful item or bottle without making it obvious. Also, it stopped Kiba from just staring at her whenever her team did anything. It got rather creepy after a while.

Oh, irony.

Said Kiba would be rather jealous, when Naruto would later recount this story to the other guys he knew. Ironically, though, it would be Sasuke that was the most jealous.

Anti-social he may be... he was still a guy. A young man, at that… He, like the others, were at an age where they began to appreciate a good catfight. And though the girls were only 12, Hinata was blessed with the most important 'aspect' of the Hyuuga Bloodline.

Every guy always remembers the first girl in his class to... bloom... and though Hinata was generally too meek and, well, odd, for most guys to be interested in... She definitely developed first.

Oh yes, all the men of their class would remember Hinata for years for that.

And he had even been there, for the show! It was a mere coincidence that he was passed out on the ground a few meters away, missing the glorious, glorious event.

Poor, poor Sasuke.

Sadly for her training, Hinata never did manage to remember how she moved as quickly as the Hakke Rokujuuyonshou called for in the initial onslaught of her counter-attack. But Naruto would long remember the results, and would on later reflection honestly attribute this moment as being the first instance where he actually understood exactly where Jiraiya was coming from this whole time.

'This kind of thing is why he peeps? It... Makes so much more sense now...'

Unfortunately, Naruto wasn't able to get more then a glimpse of Sakura after her clothes where shredded by Byakugan-powered nails ripping them apart. For, even though Sakura was now basically hiding nothing with her dress, Tenten finally pulled herself together enough to break up the fight.

The fact that she was standing in front of Naruto, blocking his view of the two other girls, was completely coincidental. So was the way she sidestepped to remain in front of him when he tried to peer around her. Yep. Complete coincidence, that.

At least Naruto's attempts to get a better look had Jiraiya cheering, as much as he was over the fact that his student was taking to following his own footsteps of being a stud with the ladies. And that maybe Naruto would stop interfering with his own peeping.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing?! You know that shinobi aren't allowed to fight like this in public. And cover yourselves up! Do you want every pervert around to stare at you?!"

Hinata's head fell further and further as Tenten's rant continued, before she finally looked like she was about to burst into tears at the pervert remark. She had just... just burst when she realized that Sakura was trying to steal HER Naruto-kun! A girl could only take so much, and Hinata had hit her breaking point when the first time she gathered up the courage to proposition Naruto, Sakura got in her way!

But, hearing Tenten yell at her made it seem like maybe someone would misunderstand what was going on, and not realize she was fighting for her One True Love. She was pretty lucky in that no one from her household had come out and put a stop to the fight, but it was all pointless because she didn't even WIN anything.

Then again... her face lit up in a blush, after realizing that Naruto had seen what Sakura had done to her jacket. Her face grew more and more flush, wondering what he was thinking... Did he see? How much did he see? Maybe he'd come with her later to see it again? And then she'd hug him, and he'd hug her back, and then he'd take off his pants...

Fortunately for Hinata, everyone just assumed her face was reddening in embarrassment, and not something else.

At the same time, Sakura became more and more embarrassed as the rant continued, as she finally realized what the heck she was doing, and in public no less. Luckily, the only people who seemed to be watching were random civilians, and no one really cared about what they thought, anyway.

She couldn't believe that she got into a fight with HINATA of all people over Naruto. Frankly, she'd expected to throw down with Tenten before it was done, but not really anyone else. After all, Naruto was 9/10 hers already, and only in last few months had he even showed the slightest interest in another girl.

The fact that he hadn't overtly sought her out in recent days, to her knowledge, was something that Sakura was able to easily ignore. She had a great deal of experience ignoring facts and common sense, from her pursuit of Sasuke. Sure, it may seem like Naruto had fallen for that older girl, but Sakura knew that Naruto would never move on to a new girl so easily.

And, while she may have been one of the few people to believe that, she was one of the few who were right. Naruto really couldn't move on that quickly on his own... it just wasn't in his nature. She felt that her window of opportunity was still open, however slim it might have become.

But Tenten surely did have a large step up over her at the moment, something Sakura would fix... As soon as she could get Naruto away from her!

Tenten, still blocking Naruto's view, pulled out one of her scrolls, and removed two blankets from it.

She really couldn't believe what she was seeing. Two of the shyest girls she'd ever heard of just going at each other like that? Now, if that Ino girl had been involved, it might seem more plausible... But there was only one reason that Tenten could even fathom why they were fighting.

Unfortunately for them, they were too late. Tenten allowed herself a small smile, even as she shuffled to the left to block Naruto's view again. Sure, these kids may think that they had a chance, but Naruto had made it clear that SHE was his choice, and after all he'd done in so short a time, she wasn't going to let him go so easily.

"Just... here. Cover yourselves up, and get out of here, before someone reports what happened here to the Hokage. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"

Naruto just scratched his head as the two girls slowly shambled off, with blankets wrapped around them. He was further confused at how they kept on turning back to stare at him.

He was even further confused at the way Tenten began growling when Hinata had stopped walking after she accidentally dropped her blanket when she turned to face Naruto one of the times.

Luckily, in her growling, she missed the goofy grin that passed across Naruto's face for a brief moment.

Maybe she just didn't want her blankets to get dirty?

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"Well... I wonder what that was about? I mean, if it was Sakura-chan and Ino fighting, I guess I could see it. But Sakura-chan and Hinata? Why would they be fighting?"

Tenten rolled her eyes. Sometimes Naruto could be so clueless, especially about girls. But then again, it was his blunt straightforwardness that led the guy to her, so she probably shouldn't complain about it.

"Some girls are just too... immature, and get into fights over stupid things. Sakura probably just insulted something important to Hinata, or something like that."

Naruto was thanking all the ramen he held dear that Tenten didn't seem about to call him out for how he'd been staring. He didn't need to be labeled a pervert, on top of all the other bizarre things going on around him.

Naruto looked around, confused at what to do now. Sasuke was still passed out on the ground, and didn't look like he was getting up any time soon. Unfortunately for him, several of his more amorous fan girls were lurking nearby, attempting to stealthily creep up on him.

If Naruto had been thinking clearly, he'd probably of tried to wake the poor guy up, to save him whatever those messed-up girls would do to him.

Sadly, his mind was still addled by boobs, so his forgetfulness could be forgiven.

"Err, yeah, if you say so. Soooo... I guess that means we get to eat some ramen now?"

"I guess so, yeah."

"No, now is not the time for ramen, Uzumaki. My sister is still in need of your help."

This time, everyone DID see Jiraiya fall out of his tree, once again failing to notice the Jinchuuriki hiding in it with him. Naruto, Tenten, and Gaara turned and stared as Jiraiya stood up, brushed himself off, and casually walked away whistling, as if he hadn't just fallen out of a tree.

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"So, you're telling me that it wasn't actually Temari who had come back earlier, but was actually one of her kidnappers henged?"

"Yes."

"And they told you that she was being ransomed off for 10 trillion ryo?"

"Yes."

"And they also said that they were constantly monitoring you, and that if you left the village, they'd kill Temari?"

"Yes."

"Isn't... Isn't 10 trillion ryo an absurdly huge amount of money? Like, more money then everyone in the elemental countries combined has?"

"... Maybe."

"So wouldn't asking for that much be kind of stupid? Like maybe they had some kind of ulterior motive for asking for that much, but saying YOU couldn't rescue her?"

"That might be possible, but it's unlikely-"

"I mean, why ask for that much for a ransom if you KNOW no one could conceivably pay it?"

"Shut up, Naruto. Because I can't do it, you need to go rescue my sister."

"But wouldn't it be smarter to get a whole team of people together, to go and rescue her? Because people demanding that ridiculous of an amount of money are clearly expecting us to try and rescue her."

"No. You must go now."

"But wouldn't it-"

"I SAID GO NOW!"

'Twas an odd argument to see; Naruto was getting progressively more perplexed, and Gaara was getting progressively angrier.

Naruto just had no clue what was going on, or why Gaara was so adamant that Naruto had to be the one who rescued his sister. Tenten was mildly confused, but incredibly suspicious of the whole thing. However, her fear of being squished with sand overrode her curiosity at why the heck Gaara was acting like this.

That doesn't mean she wasn't getting more and more upset with the day. First her training with Naruto had been interrupted, then those girls were fighting over the guy who was interested in HER, then those girls were LITERALLY fighting over the guy interested in her... And now apparently Naruto HAD to rescue the other girl who was hitting on him.

She just wanted to spend time with Naruto! With everything else that had happened lately, Tenten had decided she Naruto had proven enough, and they should at least start dating. Ya know, see where things go... But just as she reached that point, all these other girls just showed up out of nowhere!

Gaara, though... Gaara was upset that his plan wasn't moving as smoothly as he had hoped. He figured that, once hearing what had 'happened', Naruto would rush off, save his sister, and then Temari would convince him to be her mate, and then go off and maim their enemies. Or something similar to that. Whatever it was that normal people wanted from each other.

It was a surprise, the way Naruto was responding. Especially with how easy it was for Gaara to find someone to actually kidnap Temari for him. Gaara had figured that would be the hard part, and convincing Naruto would be easy...

Naruto stared off into space for a moment, as if deeply thinking. He shook his head out, and smiled enthusiastically.

"Well, I guess I WOULD be the best choice for rescuing people, anyway, seeing as how I'm going to be the Hokage! Which way did they go? And do you know who the guy was that nabbed her?"

Inwardly cheering at the success of his plan, Gaara replied, "They went west, towards Rain... And the one who kidnapped her said his name was 'Tobi'."

And then Gaara's plan crumbled a little, when Naruto replied, "Alrighty, me and Tenten will get her back in a jiffy. I mean, what kind of name is 'Tobi' anyway?"

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Now, several things about what just happened may seem odd.

After all, it's rather counter to Naruto's base character to think things through, and not rush headlong into danger to rescue a friend. It was a core aspect to who he was; the willingness to do anything to defend anybody who he named friend.

But here he was, thinking things through logically, asking intelligent questions, and generally not being a moron.

Given Naruto's personality, it made no sense. However, with the way his mind actually functioned, it made perfect sense. When placed in a high pressure situation, some part of him took charge to see it through, and outside of such situations, his mind usually devolved to chaos. While not a high pressure situation per se, his brain HAD just went through something of a blender at what he had just seen.

For very few of his various personality-types could actually maintain higher brain functions when presented with a near naked Sakura and Hinata fighting each other. In most men, seeing a similar sight would have led to knockout-by-nosebleed. In Naruto's case he was able to resist, mainly because one of the smarter Naruto's, namely 'Hokage-Naruto', was able to take full control while all of the more headstrong and action-oriented types were blissfully unconscious.

It wouldn't last long, sure, but for that brief time, Naruto was actually thinking things through.

Another odd thing was how Tenten didn't get stereotypically enraged by Naruto's obviously perverted thoughts, on seeing two of his classmates, two girls that Tenten had realized were interested in HER man, rolling around on the ground, wrestling near-naked in public.

No one would be surprised if she had reacted in some over-the-top violent manner, but, well, she didn't. Though she DID stop Naruto from watching, she didn't punish him for doing so as he did.

The reason, unsurprisingly, goes back to Tenten's last year, being on a team with three guys who would never be held up as a paragon of normalcy.

Frankly, as long as he didn't start wearing green spandex, or spouting soliloquies of angst, whatever he was doing was probably not as bad as what he COULD be doing. She couldn't even really blame him... God knows she'd react similarly if it had been two cute guys she knew wrestling around naked like that.

Being mildly perverted was FAR better then some other things he could be, and Tenten would save up her righteous feminine rage for a moment when he truly deserved it. Like if he ever took Gai up on an offer of training, or something truly heinous.

And besides, she was a kunoichi. Part of all kunoichi's training was a set of tactics created to deal with male ninja. It would be rather stupid of her to blame Naruto for acting the way he was, since he pretty much confirmed what her teachers had taught. She knows very well what boobs can do to a boy, so a part of her can forgive him for reacting the way her teachers had explained guys would.

The other, and most strange, thing... How the heck did Gaara find TOBI of all people to pawn Temari off on?

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Flashback 30 minutes ago

As Gaara intrepidly wandered through the forest, carrying his unconscious sister over his shoulder, he searched for a foe worthy enough to take her hostage.

And, well, he didn't really find anybody. He was just wandering around by himself in the woods for goodness sake. Gaara had been rather confident that he would find SOMEONE to kidnap her... And, well, his paranoia that people were always out to get him actually proved his saving grace.

Because at the same time, approaching from the opposite direction, were three fellows happily chatting about their plans for the day.

Well, OK, only one was happily chatting. The other two were cursing him out and telling him to shut the fuck up, before they broke his face in. And then pawn off his mask. And sacrifice him to some bizarre deity of torture.

But... luckily, Kakuzu came up with a plan. This ingenious scheme would surely get Tobi off his shoulders. Granted, he'd still have to deal with Hidan and his irritating personality quirks, but after a few days with Tobi, Kakuzu was rapidly realizing how much worse he could have it, partner-wise.

Clearly, Tobi would be of no use to anyone for capturing any of the Jinchuuriki. In fact, he'd probably be a hindrance, bumbling into his way in a fight and probably getting everyone else killed.

No, Tobi had to be somewhere else, but still 'helping' them, because Pain had said he had to help. And no one liked to disagree with Pain, or do something contrary to his wishes. That sort of thing usually ended poorly.

So, Kakuzu pondered up a way to keep Tobi out of his hair.

"Tobi... Alright, here's the plan. You're going to go scout out that way, and if you see the nine-tails, you're to lure him back towards Rain. Hidan and I will, uhh, follow you, and we'll catch the vessel with ease as he chases you. Maybe you can steal some of his ramen, or say he'll never be Hokage, or something. Get him good and mad, and then lead him on a chase to Rain. You understand?"

Kakuzu had researched what factoids he could exploit against the nine-tails' vessel after he had been informed of his new target. After all, it paid to read up on what you could use against your potential enemies… or so Kakuzu himself had written in the latest issue of Missing-nin Monthly. That magazine was a rather profitable endeavor, especially the way he was able to subtly cut down on the competition, by giving them terrible, terrible advice.

"Yes! I'll do it! I'll lure him straight towards our hideout, so we can catch him easy-peasy! And I'll become a full-fledged member of Akatsuki!"

"Um, yeah... You do that. Go on and get to it."

'And THAT should get Tobi out of my way for the time being.'

Never once did Kakuzu even contemplate Tobi actually succeeding.

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So, as Tobi skipped his way through the woods towards Konoha, he came across a nice young man carrying around a young lady.

Tobi was about to go and offer to help the girl, who seemed to be unconscious, when the little guy spoke up (and in a surprisingly deep voice, too).

"You. Oh no, by your cloak, you must be in Akatsuki. Oh woe is me. If you kidnapped my sister, I don't know what I would do. I could surely stop you, unless you threatened to kill my sister if I did... But even if you did, my good friend Uzumaki Naruto, the nine-tailed fox jinchuuriki, will surely follow you. Though he would be easily led into a trap, he would most definitely follow you, to rescue my sister here."

'There. No one could possibly misunderstand that.' The monotone it was delivered in definitely helped that case, as Gaara essentially just told Tobi to, well, kidnap his sister.

Tobi thought about it for a moment. It certainly seemed as if there was something he should do here, but it took him a minute to think it up. Gaara was beginning to get frustrated, and was on the verge of just giving Temari to the guy and leaving, when Tobi snapped his fingers.

"Alright! I got it! Tobi is the best Akatsuki member ever! I'll kidnap your sister here, and use her to lure the nine-tailed fox into my trap! I'll catch that nine-tails without any problems! Kakuzu will be so proud of me! Now you give me your sister!"

"Well, if you say so... But my friend will be upset."

'Did he... Just act like he came up with the idea on his own, without my blatant hinting? Is he... is he really a member of Akatsuki?'

Even with the mask, it was somehow obvious that Tobi's brow was furrowed in thought. He knew there was more to the kidnapping profession then just running away with the captive...

'Now, what do I do? What would Kakuzu do if he had a hostage? Oh, wait, he'd do the same thing he always does! He'd ask for money!'

"Now I have your sister! Muwahahaha! If you chase after me, I'll kill her (though I am heading to Rain Country, if you want to follow), but you can get her back if you pay me 10 trillion ryo!"

'10 trillion ryo is what Kakuzu said it would take for him to agree to be my friend, wasn't it? I'll catch the nine-tails, AND get to be Kakuzu's new bestest friend!'

"That's... a lot of money."

"It's what Kakuzu would want."

"... Right. Well, I'll get right on telling Uzumaki how terrible of a person you are, and how he needs to rescue my sister."

And as Gaara and Tobi started walking back the way they came...

Both of them thought the same thing.

'Yes, this is all going according to plan...'

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"So now you see why Uzumaki had to go run off and rescue my sister immediately. It was a matter of life or death, and I could never risk my sister's life like that and go after her myself. He took his woman with him, and I saw Jiraiya of the Sannin chasing off after him."

The Hokage just took off his hat, and began to massage his forehead. Today just wasn't his day. He was so backlogged with work, that he could barely keep up with the local news. Much was going on in the world-stage, and dealing with the threat of Akatsuki sapped a lot of his time.

Meaning that he hadn't had any time to catch up on the latest gossip in town.

"Your sister was kidnapped, and you came and told NARUTO of all people to go rescue her? And he just ran off right after you told him? Do you know how many rules this violates?"

"Well, no, he didn't immediately run off... Naruto first had a few bowls of ramen before leaving."

"And that's it? He just ran off?"

"Well, he was also joined by a man I believe to be Hyuuga Hiashi. As soon as Naruto sat down to eat, the man strode out of the Hyuuga mansion and joined him. They spent about 20 minutes discussing ramen, before Naruto had to leave."

"... What the hell?"

Flashback 20 minutes prior

"Well, since we're here anyway, we might as well get some ramen before we go!"

"Are you sure that's wise, Naruto? My sister's life is in the balance. You must go rescue her now."

Naruto waved him off. "There's always time for Ramen, Gaara. Always."

"But-"

"ALWAYS."

Gaara unconsciously backed up a step, his mind flash-backing to the chuunin exams, and how he really didn't want to be frog-stomped because he apparently didn't understand the importance of ramen.

And oddly, the second Naruto sat down, a regal looking man strode out of the nearby house and gracefully sat down next to him.

Tenten and Gaara both looked at each other in confusion. The looks grew as Naruto greeted the man with gusto, surprising Tenten immensely. She had met the Hyuuga Patriarch numerous times in the past, and she had never in her life imagined that THAT particular rumor about Naruto may be true... It just didn't make sense that these two would be friends.

But, the two chatted away about the importance of amount of time one heated the broth to the taste of the noodles, and how crucial even a minute could be.

Just as Naruto was finishing up his bowl, Hiashi reached out and patted his shoulder.

"So have you come to any newer conclusions about what life has to offer you, on your dilemma?"

Tenten's confusion grew, not having a clue at what Hiashi could be talking about, nor why Naruto began to blush deeply.

"Well, yeah... I definitely have more to think about now. But... It's looking a lot nicer then it did last time we talked, that's for sure!"

Hiashi nodded knowingly, making Naruto wonder if he had seen what Naruto had witnessed, and if he had, why the heck he wasn't enraged by Hinata being caught naked in public.

But then again, this was the same guy who had evidently told him that it was actually a good idea to, ahem, 'get to know' all the girls before picking one out, so maybe he was cool with it?

That was definitely something to ponder.

"Well, Hiashi, me and Tenten have to run! We have a friend to save! 'tebayo!"

Gaara remained, bemused, at how Hyuuga Hiashi just waved him off, placed some money on the table, and strolled off, without saying a word.

'Well, I suppose I should go tell the Hokage what is going on, so he won't be too surprised...'

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"With your permission, I shall take my leave to follow after them, to ensure nothing goes too wrong."

"Sigh... I'll send Tsunade after them as well, just in case. This is just going to end badly, I know it..."

OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE Submitted by Warai Kitsune!

1234567890 (If you don't understand some of the references, See the AN below)

OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE

It had been a slaughter; part ambush, part jailbreak, and most of all, an out-and-out mutiny. No one had seen it coming, though in hind-sight, it should have been obvious, considering how quiet he'd been lately.

Thankfully, it was a slaughter of...well, 'beings' that weren't truly alive in the first place, and as such, couldn't die.

Though dying wasn't always necessary to ensure victory.

Naruto grunted as he forced himself up; he remains of the council's table were laying on quite a few, but he'd taken the brunt of the attack, and had most of the remaining weight still on him. Shaking his head dimly, he tried to remember what had happened; there'd been a massive explosion, then the sound of struggle...smoke and noise, most of it yelling without the sound of combat...he frowned. "Genjutsu?" he muttered as he shook his head again, trying to clear out the cobwebs. Something felt wrong, he just couldn't put his finger on it. Finally standing, he looked around; the Council Room had been badly damaged, but it looked as though nearly all of it had been the result of sword strikes.

He froze. "My head," he whispered, his hands flying to his hair, scrabbling desperately. Finding nothing only fueled his dread as he dropped to the ground, hands scrabbling around. He froze again as he realized his clothing was wrong too.

Swallowing thickly, he stood up, and turned to the one intact window in the Room, and forcing himself not to flinch, he took in his reflection.

No Hat. No Robes. Just a dented hitai-ate, his blue tank top, and orange pants.

Hokage-Naruto stared dumbly at himself...

...and remembered.

(The near to immediate past)

Sighing, hokage-Naruto waved his hat around, calming down the various other Narutos as they fell under the hypnotic spell of someday being the owner of that hat. "Alright, I don't think I need to tell you what this meeting is about."

Genjutsu-Naruto (who for some bizarre reason was dressed as a classic stage magician (top hat, tuxedo, and flowing cape)) shrugged as he idly snapped through hand seals, creating pigeons and rabbits out of thin air that Repressed-Inner-Psychopath-Naruto was impaling on thrown kunai and senbon (giggling creepily the whole time, regardless of the fact that they just poofed into smoke whenever they were hit). "I don't see what's so important that you had to get all of us out here." He sat up straighter, idly pulling a ryo out of Swordsman-Naruto's ear. "Besides, if we're calling a meeting of the most powerful persona, shouldn't Sex-Drive be here?"

Hokage-Naruto coughed uncomfortably; Genjutsu-Naruto tended to act in a manner HE considered to be urbane and sophisticated. Most of the other personalities agreed that it just made him seem to have a stick up his ass (the only arguments were how big of one, and how many forks were in it). "It's concerning Sex-Drive that I've called this meeting. I think we can all agree that he's been getting...a little too carried away."

Swordsman-Naruto polished his Kubikiri Hochou (he still thought of it as his), and grunted in what he considered to be a Zabuza-esque manner. "I don't see the problem; he's getting us more time with Ten-Ten, and that means I'm getting a lot out of it."

Repressed-Inner-Psycho-Naruto (who thankfully, despite his not-insignificant power in Naruto's mind never really managed to get free), snickered. "He's Sex-Drive; of COURSE he's gonna get too big for his britches." He giggled even louder at his own joke.

Hokage-Naruto grumbled; Sex-Drive was getting out of control, and he seemed to be the only one who cared. "Look, I'll admit that there's nothing wrong with finally getting somewhere with the girls, I'm just saying, that maybe letting Sex-Drive run free is going to be a bad idea."

"How so?" demanded Ninjutsu-Naruto; he was still pissed about Sex-Drive and Swordsman double-teaming him all those weeks ago, but even he was beginning to fall under the hypnotic sway of Ten-Ten's great ass...and Hinata's cleavage...and Kurenai's teasingly-bondagy outfit...and Temari's...he shook his head. "Anyway, what's the problem."

"He's trying to get authorization to lose our virginity to Anko," Hokage-Naruto stated grimly.

Silence met that as the various personalities shifted uncomfortably; both from a sudden tightening in the drawers and from a rather abrupt cold sweat. On the one hand (as Sex-Drive was pointing out...constantly...) Anko was hot. REALLY hot. SMOKING hot. And considering how little she wore, it was almost guaranteed that she'd be some sort of kinky freak in the sack who'd probably let them get away with anything they suggested.

On the other hand, she was also almost guaranteed to be a kinky freak in the sack who'd demand to get away with anything she suggested...and once they got her started, she was unlikely to slow down for...well, anything.

And with the possible exception of Closet-Gay-Naruto (who most of them denied existed, and all did their level best to keep stunted and weak), none of them were ready for some of what Anko would likely come up with.

Sex-Drive had dropped the ball, suggesting some of the kinkier uses for the Senei-Jashu. Not even HE wanted a snake there.

"...Okay, I think we can agree that THAT would be a bad idea," Swordsman-Naruto admitted, "but still, we can just quash that and let him do his thing, right?"

"And his suggestion to kidnap Sakura, Ino, Ten-Ten, Temari, and Hinata for a kage-bunshin gang-bang?"

"We can accomplish anything," the thousand micro-Naruto's chimed in (Kage-Bunshin-Naruto was a hive-mind after all).

"Not without my agreement," Hokage-Naruto growled. "I'm still wearing the hat here."

"Not for long."

Then all hell had broken loose.

Hokage-Naruto grimaced as he slumped into a cross-legged sitting position. It had to have been Genjutsu-Naruto who'd put it all together; Sex-Drive was driven, but he was also an imbecile. WHY Genjutsu had bothered he hadn't figured out yet, but he'd deal with that (and the traitor) later.

Sex-Drive had apparently been going overboard on purpose, just to draw the Council together to take them all at once.

He grimaced; apparently, Swordsman had been in on it; figuring that once Sex-Drive got it out of his system, he'd have a chance to get more alone-time with Tenten, thus becoming even stronger. Taijutsu (who had recently fallen to the Green side of the force), had apparently been duped into believing that sex would 'stoke the flames of our youth,' and had joined in. Kage-bunshin had joined in, as had Apocolyptic-Kyuubi-Rage-Naruto; he wasn't sure how that had happened. Though Oiroke-Naruko wasn't too surprising; she'd been hanging out with Sex-Drive, trying to convince him that if being the Guy in a girl-on-girl sandwich was good, then being a girl in a girl-on-girl sandwich was fine too.

None of that really mattered though; he'd lost The Hat (Capital letters intentional). And with the hat, Sex-Drive and Genjutsu could do anything with Naruto's body that they wanted to (though anyone might have been the proper term).

Growling under his breath, Hokage-Naruto stood up. "This isn't over," he hissed softly. "Not by a long-shot." He turned to the other slowly-recovering Naruto's; Ninjutsu was still with him, as was Repressed-Inner-Psycho. Granted, he probably wouldn't be much use, but he'd work with what he had.

There were other Naruto's, but not many of them would be of any use; most were weak, fragmentary, or just flat out ludicrous (he still hadn't figured out where Conspiracy-Nut Naruto had come from; as if someone would really write some sort of awesome story about Naruto and then slowly let it go horribly, horribly wrong). And considering that Genjutsu, drawing on Kyuubi's kitsune affinity for illusions to increase his power, there wasn't much that they could do anyway.

He grimaced. Not much choice in the matter.

He just counted his blessings that none of the other personalities had thought to take his Hitai-ate; there were some secrets of Naruto's personality that only he knew about...so far.

Once he'd said it though...there was no going back.

Untying his hitai-ate, he slipped the small metal key out from behind the metal plate, flipping the cloth of the head-protector to cover the metal plate.

Ninjutsu-grunted sourly as he stood up; when he got his hand on Swordsman, he was going to stick that sword where the sun didn't shine...right before he shined some light from a full-power Rasengan. Then he was going to throw him to Closet-Gay-Naruto and let that sick bastard have his way with him (which would incidentally make him stronger, thus requiring a much worse beat-down of them both to properly weaken them again)...then he was going to...his train of thought derailed as he saw Hokage standing in the middle of the room, some key dangling from his outstretched right hand. He wasn't sure why, but something told him this was BAD. "Wait, what are you – "

Hokage-Naruto ignored him; he'd be damned if he let Sex-Drive take over. "I, Hokage-Naruto, declare this a formal emergency." Swallowing, he forced himself to speak the words that he'd never be able to take back. "Under Article 81, Provision 34, I am authorizing the release of Personality 47."

None of them had ever heard of any 'Personality 47' before. Certainly, there were probably thousands of fragmentary Naruto-personalities (even if you counted all of the Kage-Bunshin as one). But once he'd said it, they all knew exactly what had been unleashed.

There wasn't a sound as a hand covered in a plate-armor bracer extended over Hokage-Naruto's shoulder to grab the key. Shivering slightly, Hokage-Naruto forced himself to turn around and watch as 47 unlocked the heavy iron chains and manalces that weighed him down.

There was no way he should have been able to sneak up on ANYONE with that much loose metal rattling around, but somehow, they knew it had been easy.

Hokage swallowed again as 47 finished unlocking his steel face mask, revealing a pair of blue eyes that sized him up surgically, like a butcher trying to place his cleaver for the most efficient way to hack him to bits. Nothing else was visible behind the full-face mask he wore, covering everything but a narrow strip of skin around his eyes. He was dressed completely in black. Form-fitting tabi-boots, shirt and pants loose enough to provide freedom of movement, tight enough not to snag; armored greaves, and bracers with climbing claws attached to the palms. A kusari-gama was dangling from his waist, a bandolier of scrolls slung across his chest.

And for whatever reason, on his right hand, he wore a single glove that looked disturbingly like it had been dyed a perfect, bloody red by the stuff itself.

Wordlessly, Hokage extended the now-featureless Hitai-ate, which 47 accepted, and with a few harsh motions tied in place.

Without a word, he turned and left.

He had a job to do.

Ninjutsu stared at the retreating figure, just before he flickered and vanished. "What..." he swallowed. "Who the hell is that supposed to be? Make-You-Piss-Your-Pants-Naruto? Modeled-After-Itachi-Naruto?" He paused, as he considered someone he'd never met. "Complete-Badass-Naruto?"

Hokage shook his head. "I don't know where he came from, or where Naruto found him, but he's been around even longer than me." He whimpered as screams started coming from deeper in Naruto's mind. "I think he might have been formed from a combination of the Kyuubi's memories and the Shinigami's. Or maybe Scholar-Naruto pieced him together from old stories."

Ninjutsu blinked. "There's a scholar Naruto?" Then shivered as he heard what sounded like Genjutsu screaming "you can't pull a rabbit out of theaAAAGH!" Desperate to change the subject, he plowed ahead. "Anyway, I didn't ask where he came from, I asked who he was." He paused. "And when this is over, is there anyway we're going to be able to lock him back up?" Seriously, he didn't want to know what '47' was apparently up to.

Hokage sighed. "He's Personality 47. The Red Right Hand. But if you want to know which one of us he is..." he grimaced.

"He's Old-School-Shinobi-Naruto."

END OMAKE!

Author's Notes: Long time, eh? I randomly google searched my penname, and was surprised at a few of the places it popped up at. Gave me some more motivation to get more writing out, which is always pretty cool.

Its been a while since I touched this story, so I hope that it still has the same tone. It's approaching the climax, as it were. Naruto and Tenten are off chasing Tobi, who's running on the way to Rain with the kidnapped Temari.

Hidan and Kakuzu are near Konoha, but they haven't quite yet realized that by some bizarre coincidence, Tobi actually succeeded.

And what of Sakura and Hinata? Well, if you weren't getting some of the references to Hinata, I invite you to google Image search 'True Hyuuga Bloodline'. I believe the first image that pops up will answer that question for you. There place in the story is not over, never fear… Though how it results, well, that ain't quite been revealed ; ).

As for the Omake… It was written as a response to the last chapter, by Warai Kitsune over at TFF. It came about from the incredible similarity between Naruto's thought processes, and that of Garth, the lead character in the Webcomic Comedity (). It was a ridiculous coincidence (as I didn't even know the comic existed until someone pointed out the similarity), but it's a rather good, though very slow updating, comic. Go read it. It's worth it.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Two figures leaped through the trees of Fire Country, tracking their prey like hounds after a fox. Swiftly they ran, somehow following a trail at high speed from the trees. An impressive feat, that.

Why, they didn't even bother to slow, moving at speeds most would consider absurd to even consider trying to reach unaided by machine, much less by leaping from tree to tree. Trackers they be, highly trained in the art of stalking their prey.

It helped that in this case the man they were pursuing was putting little effort into hiding his trail, choosing speed over safety in his getaway.

So, ok, maybe the trail was a trifle obvious.

"How many shoes is that guy wearing, and why the heck does he keep dropping them as he runs??"

Fine, maybe the kidnapper was making it extremely obvious.

Naruto and Tenten continued towards Rain, hoping to head off this Tobi fella who had somehow managed to kidnap Temari. Jiraiya stealthily followed behind the children, despite being far more nervous than them.

Naruto wasn't nervous in the least. After all, he was the hero, and he saved the day. That's what Hokage's did, right? And if he wanted to be Hokage, he'd have to be a kickass ninja who could rescue girls from situations like this with no problem. Heck, wasn't it even part of the job description?

Naruto could see his future business cards now...

"Uzumaki Naruto, Hokage Extraordinaire  
You know an asshole who needs beating  
Or a princess who needs rescuing  
I'm your man!"

'Hell yeah! Those would be awesome!'

While Naruto considered other aspects of being an awesome Hokage, Tenten WAS worrying about more pressing concerns. Well, she wasn't that worried, but she was a tad nervous. Tenten remembered quite well that Temari beat her in exams. She also remembered that Gaara was some kind of psychopathic sand monster. Whatever it was that made him back down and surrender his sister wasn't someone that Tenten wanted to meet.

But at the same time she was with Naruto, who, she remembered, had beaten Gaara when he went all 'crazy sand beast'. He'd also killed Orochimaru, captured that guy who'd stolen the Raijin, and caused S-ranked ninjas to run away in fear

So while running through the woods to rescue a girl she didn't like, from some kidnapper (who had stolen her from a guy who was freakin nuts), Tenten wasn't as worried as she frankly should have been.

After all, Naruto was there. And he'd make sure nothing bad happened to her.

Jiraiya was torn. On the one hand, Naruto rescuing Temari would be quite the perfect ending to his newest book. Well, it would be if gratuitous nudity and a threesome was involved, and Jiraiya could handle making that part up himself if he had to. Either way, this was the sort of thing he couldn't miss, as it would be way too perfect a way to finish his story.

On the other hand...

He DIDN'T want to have to go to Rain.

Rain had some very bad memories for him, thank you very much. Hanzou was one scary mother-fucker, and the further Jiraiya could stay away from the mess that was Rain, the better.

It was tempting to sweep Naruto and his woman up and carry them back, but the political fall-out from losing the former Kazekage's daughter was also something that he had to consider.

The best idea Jiraiya could come up with was just to follow Naruto and see where he went, and make sure he didn't fuck things up too badly.

Finally, at a distance, but closing quickly, were Gaara and Tsunade. Tsunade, much like Jiraiya, really didn't like the idea of going to Rain -for pretty much the exact same reasons, actually.

That, and there may or may not be a casino on the Konoha side of the border, that she may or may not owe a large sum of money in gambling debt to.

Maybe.

Gaara... Gaara was just hoping that his sister actually succeeded this time, and that he didn't have to take such a direct hand in her love life anymore. For pete's sake, he was pretty much having to do all the work for her! It was like she wasn't even serious about the whole thing!

But he had promised to be a good brother, and hopefully make it harder for the Ichibi to take over his head and make him kill people that he didn't necessarily want to. Or at least wouldn't act on normally.

'Stupid human social interactions, and their goal of limiting bloodshed...'

If this is what normal people had to deal with everyday, he'd take being a murdering pyschopath anytime.

Dealing with love was a pain in the ass.

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'Bwahahahaahahah! They're falling right into my trap!'

Tobi cackled as he ran, thinking of how perfectly his awesome plan was going.

It was more of a skip, really... Or maybe a prance. But he certainly was doing it quickly, all the while attempting to laugh evilly and throwing shoes over his shoulder every so often.

Temari, having woken up sometime through the run, didn't want to know.

Tied up and gagged, she didn't want to have to deal with whatever insanity this nutjob that Gaara had pawned her off to would come up with.

Especially with the sheer volume of shoes he had offhand.

Temari wasn't quite certain where Gaara got his ideas from, but the second she actually was able to get a word in edgewise with him, she'd let him know in no uncertain terms that this wasn't how good brothers acted.

She had no idea how this wacko had gotten a hold of her, and she was more then a bit worried that not only did her brother have a huge hand in this... But that he though that he was also doing her a favor by it.

Whatever reason for her being kidnapped, though... She just wanted the fuck away from this guy.

Tobi, though... Tobi knew today was a good day. A glorious success for all of Akatsuki! The perfect set-up had been presented to him to finish his own plans, and goshdarnit he was going to take it!

All he had to do was lure Naruto close enough to Rain... then he'd be able to spring his trap!

'Oh, if only Kakuzu and Hidan were here... they'd want to be my friend for sure now!'

Tobi's laugh turned slightly more sinister... If one could actually call it that. Instead of picturing, say, a kitten laugh evilly, imagine it was an angry kitten laughing evilly.

'Soon, the Akatsuki's plans will be complete! Everything is going perfectly! All my plans... All my goals... It will come to pass! It WILL be mine! Muwahahhaahahaha!'

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"Man, I needed a break. Nonstop missions for months like that I can handle... But its nice to have some time to relax."

Kisame wandered about the Akatsuki base, bored. Its not like it was a place bustling with activity or anything, but it was too peaceful.

The low level goons tended to learn pretty quickly not to irritate the S-ranked criminals who had no problem with indiscriminate slaughter, after all.

"Still... I wish someone other then Itachi was here..."

But... There was nothing to do in the base! Hell, Itachi wouldn't even play Yahtzee with him! The first and only time that Kisame had asked, Itachi had stared with such intensity at the cup filled with dice that it actually spontaneously combusted. Since then, Kisame just hadn't bothered.

'Then again, he never seems to want to play any of our boardgames for some reason...'

But, Kisame had a plan for today. Not many knew it (though frankly, no one would be surprised if they heard it), but Kisame was an expert fisherman. Under an assumed name (which, unsurprisingly, didn't actually mean that no one knew who he was. He still looked like a giant fucking fishman), Kisame had competed in and legitimately won numerous fishing contests over the years.

And there just happened to be a rather nice lake right by the border to Konoha that had some fish ready to become his lunch. So Kisame donned full fishing regalia, picked up his tacklebox, and strapped his fishing pole to his back next to Samehada.

"Now, where did I leave my hat?"

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"Hey you! Kid! Wake up! You've been lying there for an hour now!"

"Huh? Wha?"

Sasuke came to on the floor of Ichiraku's, where he was being nudged with a broom. In the face. A dirty broom that had just been used to clean the stand's floors.

Yuck.

Sasuke flailed his arms about, trying to push the broom away from his face, before regaining his senses.

"Stop that! What the hell... happened..."

It all came rushing back to Sasuke. Uchiha Itachi, his brother... his nemesis... the man he was destined to kill... was scared off by Naruto?!

Seriously? Naruto?

'But... Why? What is it about Naruto that could scare HIM?'

Sasuke stood up, brushing himself off nonchalantly, as if he wasn't just woken up from a dirtnap. Ignoring Ichiraku, Sasuke slouched a tad, putting up his cool facade that had all the prepubescent girls squealing.

'I must... brood on this. My brother has presented a weakness, and I shall exploit any possible weakness to defeat him! Any!'

Sasuke stood a moment, trying to remember if Naruto had revealed anything else about his encounter, anything at all that might have caused Itachi to leave for a reason that wasn't fear, a fear of goddamn moronic dead-last student who could barely fight his way out of a wet paper bag.

Sasuke steadfastedly ignored all Naruto's recent successes. When you're a stubborn genius prodigy, ignoring the obvious or the truth were easily accomplished.

Case in Point: Neji. If he could blame all his problems on Hinata, by God, Sasuke could ignore how incredibly wrong (some of) his perceptions about Naruto were.

Sasuke was just really hoping that whatever secret weakness Itachi had, it wasn't something like orange clothing.

He looked ridiculous in orange.

Just as Sasuke was about to go, though, someone tugged lightly on his arm. Alarmed at not noticing the person sneaking up on him, he swiftly turned to face them.

"Oh. Its you, Hyuuga-san. What do you want?"

Hinata had returned to the ramen stand, after sneaking back into the Hyuuga mansion (an extremely difficult task to accomplish, for rather obvious reasons) and putting on clothing that actually hid what it was supposed to. Though it should be noted that after seeing the affect it had on Naruto, Hinata hid the shredded clothes under her mattress to be saved for later 'use'.

"Do you... Do you know where Naruto-kun went?"

'Sigh. Why was everything about Naruto lately, anyway?'

Sasuke was used to girls bothering him with stupid questions. Fuck, he had at least 3 girls that he could count hiding in clothing racks in the store across the street staring at him. But he wasn't used to the idea of girls seeking out Naruto. As far as he knew, other then Hinata and her blatant stalking, no girl had been even remotely interested in him. And even then, Hinata was far too shy to ever actually speak to someone about the guy.

"No, Hyuuga-san, I do-"

"Sasuke! Have you seen Naruto?"

'Is it possible that Sakura was actually easier to deal with and less irritating when she was obsessed with me? Is that even possible? At least she was polite to me then...'

Sakura, living significantly further away from the ramen stand then Hinata, had instead to deal with the run to her house and then the run back, which strangely took the exact same amount of time it had taken Hinata to sneak into her own house and then back out.

An odd coincidence, that.

"Wha- No, I haven't seen him, Sakura. And if you guys are just going gossiping about Naruto, I'm out of here. I have training to do."

Just as Sasuke was about to leave, someone else spoke up.

"You're looking for Naruto? He went off to rescue some girl who got kidnapped, or something. Her brother came here and ordered Naruto to rescue her. It was pretty strange, actually..."

All three kids turned and looked at Ichiraku.

"Rescue some girl? Goddamn, which skank is it this time?!"

Sasuke turned sharply to Sakura. 'What... What the hell does skank mean? And good god, why does she look so pissed? Isn't rescuing women part of a ninja's job description?

'Maybe that's just one of those things they don't teach the girls about when they drag them off to learn about flowers or whatever.'

After all, even though Sasuke ignored all the fangirls who stalked him around, its not like he didn't ignore women in general. He just didn't like them crazy, and pretty much every girl he had met his age had been, well, fucking nuts.

In fact, the most normal girl he knew of was the one that Naruto apparently was interested in. Maybe he wasn't such an idiot after all?

"Which way did they go?"

Sasuke's head whiplashed to the other side when he heard a deep growling... coming from Hinata? What the fuck?

"I think... I think they said towards Rain? Yeah, that sounds right."

"They? Who went with him?!"

Sasuke actually whimpered, as an almost palpable aura of righteous anger was forming around Sakura. It struck a primal chord within him... a fear that he instinctively knew was one that wasn't to be ashamed of. A fear that he somehow knew was universal.

'Just inch away...'

"Oh, just that little girlfriend of his. You know, that girl with the swords."

'slowly... '

It was a fear of the enraged woman. An enraged woman who decided that maybe taking out her anger on you would be a good idea, and that heck, you probably deserved it anyway.

'don't make eye contact... slowly....'

For some reason, the picture of Sakura wielding a giant mallet flashed through his head, and just the thought of it nearly made him run in terror.

'then make a run-'

"Oh no you don't, Sasuke. You're coming with me. We need to make sure our teammate is... safe."

If Sasuke was even slightly less stoic, tears would have formed in his eyes when an iron grip formed around his other arm.

"He's... He's coming with us."

'Why... Why did he have to wake me up?'

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'Hehehehe... Good, the lake looks just like I left it, and its a perfect spot for an ambush! It's perfect! Now to set the traps... Oh, if only Kakuzu could see me now! He'd be so proud!'

Temari could only stare, confused, as the man seemed to pace aimlessly about, poking the trees and flowers with a... spoon?

To be fair, it was more of a ladle then a spoon. But, seriously? A spoon?

But try as she might, Temari just couldn't understand why the crazy man with a spoon had taken out a large pot, nor why he was starting a fire. She especially didn't understand why he was puttering about the lake, or what he was saying when he'd mumble quietly while making hand seals. It was clear he was doing something... But she just couldn't figure out what.

Unfortunately, Hidan and Kakuzu were still mapping out Konoha's defenses, and hadn't noticed the practical train of people chasing Tobi away towards Rain.

Whether that was lucky of them or not is up to interpretation.

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So it was that everyone was converging on the lake. Tobi's traps, whatever they might be, we're set. His plan, whatever madness it may be, was nearly complete.

Naruto and Tenten were on the way. Jiraiya followed, as did Tsunade and Gaara. And bringing up the rear were Sakura, Hinata, and Sasuke, all following the trail of shoes.

And Kisame?

He would forever regret that early morning decision to go fishing and that particular lake...

Author's Notes: Been a long time, eh? Final's came around again, and thus suddenly the urge to write welled up in me. The same as it has for the last 4 semesters or so.

Shit's coming together. Expect an evil monologue by Tobi next chapter, explaining his 'sinister' plan. Kisame's issues with his sword will be revealed. Maybe. Possibly. It might happen...

Naruto might even realize what's going on, too.

And for those of you who didn't get it (and I recieved a couple of reviews and private messages that made it clear some didn't), the Omake from last chapter not only wasn't written by me, but it also has nothing to do with this stories plot. It's just an amusing outtake that a fella did over at TFF that I greatly enjoyed, and thus (with permission) attached to this story.


	11. Chapter 11

The Great Romantic

Chapter 11

"We're closing in on him, I know it!"

"How can you be so sure? The trail looks the exact same to me as it has for the rest of the chase."

"Because there's a pattern! See, the first couple dozen shoes he dropped were clearly running shoes, and then he progressed into athletic shoes, and now he's dropping walking shoes! I bet he's up at that lake up there!"

"... The shoes all look the same to me... Heck, I didn't even know they MADE 'walking shoes'. Who needs special shoes for walking, anyway?"

Tenten rolled her eyes at Naruto. It must be a guy thing, because Neji and Lee both tried to pull the same thing, acting like every type of Shinobi Sandal was the same.

Naruto slowed down a tad to consider what Tenten had just said. He ignored her rambling about shoes, instead focusing on his surroundings. He wasn't quite nervous, per se... But something about this whole situation seemed off to him. Why would someone kidnap Gaara's sister? If they were strong enough to deter Gaara, wouldn't they just kidnap HIM? Why go after his sister and then tell Gaara that only he wasn't allowed to give chase?

'Psh, whatever. There's a girl who needs saving, and thats the perfect job for me!'  
Naruto glanced again at Tenten, who was still lecturing him on the subtleties of footwear that justified her assertion.

'Man, I guess she can be a girly-girl about some things... Not like that's bad or anything, though! I just hope that this Tobi fella doesn't try and kidnap her, too. I mean, I know I can rescue her and all, but it would be... troublesome.'

The thought of Tenten getting kidnapped (again) gave Naruto a cold feeling in his stomach. He wasn't sure if it was worry or indigestion, though. He knew Tenten could take care of herself in a fight, heck, Tenten owned the crap outta him when they sparred! But still... If it was indigestion, well, that was a bad thing to go into a fight with. He still had nightmares about that bad milk he drank oh so long ago.

Naruto shook his head. 'Even if someone tries to get her, I'll stop them, 'tebayo!'

Hiashi's words were still fresh in Naruto's mind, and after sneaking another sidelong glance at Tenten as they ran (and she rambled on about footwear), Naruto decided being multifaceted and enjoying multiple things in life was a good sign for a potential partner. Maybe he should take some time to learn about shoes so they could talk about something she enjoys?

"... And I mean, just look at the height at the ankle! Clearly they offer different types of support. Anyway, we should be a little bit more careful from here on out... Who knows what sort of traps the kidnapper may be laying?"

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Kisame whistled as he walked. The sun was shining, the grass was green, and all was right in the world! He had on his lucky fishing hat, he had his lucky fishing pole, and he was ready to fish! He had made sure all his work was done yesterday, so there'd be nothing to interfere with his day of relaxing fishing. Heck, he'd even written his mother back to tell her how he was doing!

And like a good son, he lied his ass off, assuring her that he had been steering well clear of that sword-thief-boy. The poor woman was besides herself with worry over the thought of that despicable criminal stealing her family's legacy, almost to the point that she would request of Kisame send the sword back to her, for safe-keeping. Just until the thief was caught, mind you.

Kisame shuddered. No, he needed his weapon now more then ever! He couldn't let it be hidden away, even if it would assure that no grubby little thief got his hands on it. Especially with how his mother would occasionally hint about how his younger cousin was training so hard, and was probably a match for Kisame in swordsmanship now, and that maybe he deserved a turn with the family heirloom.

Kisame growled. Not if he had any say about it! Luckily, Kisame had already gotten it approved to allow his mother to visit the base and so he could assure her that all was right in the world of S-Ranked missing-nin, and that the sword was very safe with him, still. He was sure she'd be delighted about that.

He exhaled, realizing his tension. No, today was not a day for worry, or for work. Kisame stood at the edge of the lake, looking for a prime spot to fish from. Noting a large silvery pot, he vowed to bring up again with Pain the problem of campers leaving a mess behind after they returned home from some time in the wild.

Finding a nice tree, Kisame sat down, baited his hook, and cast out his rod. He propped his rod up in his lap, leaned Samehada on the tree next to him, tucked his hat down over his eyes, and began to take a nap.

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'Oh god why are you doing this to me?! What did I ever do to deserve this? And what the heck does defenestrate mean, anyway?'

Sasuke followed behind Sakura and Hinata, scared out of his pants at the sheer aura the two were occasionally putting out. Jumping at high speed from tree to tree doesn't make conversation as difficult as you'd imagine, but all the two girls would do is mutter to themselves. Most of it was incoherent... But the stuff Sasuke could understand?

He shuddered. There was a reason he stayed aloof from all the girls who chased after him. It was because girls were batshit crazy. And Sasuke had enough batshit crazy to deal with in his life in the form of Itachi, thank you very much. He hoped the Crazy was just a phase girls went through, and grew out of when they got older.

Sadly, deep in his heart he knew they probably didn't.

As the three blazed forward at speeds far beyond what one might expect from a swift land mammal, much less 12 year old humans, they cut the distance between themselves and the other pursuers quite rapidly. It was entirely reasonable, after all, that Gaara would not be the swiftest tree-jumper around. He did carry around several hundred pounds of sand on his back. The fact he could jump at all, much less move, was something akin to a miracle.

But Jiraiya and Tsunade COULD move faster. Jiraiya was tempted to. Cutting his losses and letting the Suna girl stay kidnapped would be a risky political maneuver, but he was willing to deal with the fall out. He wasn't quite in Rain yet, sure... But he could see the storm clouds on the horizon. And Rain meant Hanzo. And Hanzo was fricken' scary.

Tsunade... Tsunade was sure she didn't want another run in with Hanzo. She figured she'd be able to survive it, but it wasn't worth the risk. Tsunade fully planned on making sure Naruto didn't get killed by Hanzo, but she was willing to let him rescue the kidnapped Sand Princess if they stayed in Fire Country. Rescuing girls (and the daughter of a Kage was pretty dern close to being a princess, if you thought about it) WAS part of the ninja job description, after all. Or so Jiraiya and Orochimaru had repeatedly insisted in her youth.

Gaara was less nervous. Maybe a tad bit apprehensive, but that was it. He was sure he could take care of most anyone himself, and with the other back up he'd have, he didn't really expect there to be many people that could beat them. However, just to be on the safe side, he was currently devising a new technique, just in case.

'Hmm... yes, then after I sneak some sand behind them, I'll point off to the side, and shout 'Look over there!' And when they look, I will use the sand from behind them to grab and crush them.'

And as Gaara put the finishing touches on his new Surprise-Sand-Crush jutsu, Naruto and Tenten touched down by the lake.

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"Naruto! No! Don't touch that!"

"Aww, but Tenten, can't you see the sign?! It says 'Free Ramen' on it!"

"... Naruto, it's clearly a trap."

Arriving at the far end of the lake, the two didn't immediately notice the snoozing Kisame with his fishing pole. Maybe Tenten would have... if the first thing they didn't see was a silvery pot that had a sign hanging above it that read 'Free Ramen'.

There were even bowls and everything!

"What kind of evil monster would turn ramen into a trap?! That's gotta be illegal... Look! See, I told you it isn't a trap!"

While Naruto had been talking, the first sign was pulled back up into the tree it was hanging from, and a new one dropped, that read 'Free Ramen- Not a trap'.

"... Naruto... You can't be seriously believing this..."

"Ramen would never lie to me, Tenten! Cake, maybe, but not Ramen! Look! See!"

Once more the sign was pulled up into the tree, with a new one falling down. 'Super Awesome Free Non-Trap Ramen. Guaranteed to not be a lie!'

Tenten peered up into the tree, completely unable to see who or what was changing the signs.

Of course, as she did that, Naruto bounded forward to pour himself delicious broth.

And only he was surprised when a round bamboo cage dropped down from the tree on top of him.

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"No! Ramen, why would you lie to me like this?! How could you betray me?? I thought you... loved me..."  
l  
Naruto fell on his knees, weeping. That didn't stop him from eating the ramen, of course.

Tenten rolled her eyes, pulling out the Kusanagi Sword to cut open the cage. It just looked like regular old bamboo, though for some reason the bottom half was painted white, and the top half was painted red. Heck, she wasn't sure why Naruto wasn't breaking out of it himself, seeing how flimsy the whole thing looked.

'He's really broken up about the ramen...'

Before she could do so, of course, a strange man wearing a strange orange mask dropped from the tree.

"Muwahahahaha! I caught you! Now you're mine! My deviously evil plan worked! You never even believed your precious Ramen could betray you!"

At the sound of Tobi's voice, Naruto's head snapped up, tears still dripping down his cheeks. His eyes went from tearful to rage-ful and almost eerily glowing as Tobi spoke. Tenten had never seen Naruto this angry before... He was even manifesting an aura of pure chakra!

"You... You corrupted the Ramen? For this crime against noodles, I'LL KILL YOU!"  
Naruto grasped the bars of the cage, ripping them apart, eyes flashing red, before tearing towards Tobi. For his part, Tobi blinked confusedly, then began to cackle semi-evilishly, while running away.

Tenten followed swiftly...

Leaving behind the squirming, tied-up-and-gagged Temari, who had been plopped down on the other side of the tree. Who, unfortunately, nobody had noticed.

Poor girl.

But the chase was going around the lake... Straight towards Kisame.

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Kisame wasn't a heavy sleeper. To do so was to invite assassins attacking you in the night all the time, once that fact was known, and that was never pleasant. So he shook off his daze when he heard some shouting. 'Probably those darn campers coming back for their pot.'

Stretching, Kisame sat up straighter, before tipping his hat back off his eyes.  
'What the? I thought Tobi was out... on.. ohhhh fu-!'

Kisame was remarkably tolerant to the antics of his fellow Akatsuki. Anyone as strong as he deserved to be able to do whatever the fuck they wanted. Granted, he expected them not to care about what he was doing in return, which would lead to bickering and such when someone disrespected him.

As such, it was usually easier just to let Tobi do whatever he wanted, and let himself be amused by it. Seeing Tobi barreling down on him, Kisame was quite shocked. He was also slightly stunned when Tobi proceeded to leap and use his head as a springboard to propel himself forward.

This left him ill-prepared to handle seeing the person who had been right behind Tobi.

Who also used his head as a springboard.

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Naruto completely understood Sasuke at this moment. He now understood why Sasuke always put so much emphasis on the word 'Avenger'. He would Avenge this crime of Ramen, and make everything right again. And he'd use any means to do it!

So when Tobi bounded straight towards Kisame, Naruto recognized him as that freaky fish guy who always ran away from him. Naruto also recognized the giant wrapped sword leaning on the tree next to him. Naruto remembered how much that sword hurt to be hit with. Naruto decided that if anyone deserved to be hit with that sword, it was probably the evil man in the orange mask.

So as Naruto spring boarded off Kisame's head, he also grabbed up the big ol' sword.  
Naruto was cognizant of Tenten also bounding off the Blue Man's head. He was also aware of Kisame's terrified scream. He felt a slight drain on his chakra funneling out through his right hand, but it wasn't much. He could hear the word 'NOOOOOOO' wailing in the background. But none of that mattered. No, he had an evil-doer to smite!

With that, Naruto sprang forward faster then before, closing the distance between himself and Tobi, and swung Samehade down over his head as hard as he could.

Only for Tobi to spin around... And block the swing with a spoon?

Naruto continued his attack, stroke after stroke of bladed combat that had been drilled into his head in his practice with Tenten. And each and every one was stopped by the Spoon, with an almost nonchalant ease.

"Behind you, Naruto!"

Naruto swung around, sword leading... Only for it to smack directly into Kisame's hands.

And begin to drain him of his chakra.

Kisame immediately let go, shocked. Samehada wasn't supposed to drain him! It wasn't supposed to drain anyone of his bloodline! Heck, it wasn't even supposed to let anyone else hold it! That... that Thief had already corrupted his sword?!

But before Kisame could do anything else, he was cold-clocked in the back of the head by a surprisingly sturdy spoon, and knocked clean unconscious.

Fortunately, Kisame had interrupted the flow of the fight, clearing Naruto's head a bit.

"Why did you do such an evil act? Why did you defile the noodles?"

Tobi scratched his head. First the cage didn't work... and now this? He had thought the boy would talk about or worry about the girl he had 'kidnapped' at least a little. She was supposed to like him or something, right? Ah, well, this could work too. He was already having to alter his plan on the fly after seeing that seal light up... He could go with the flow.

"Ah, young Naruto, how do you know that it wasn't the Ramen that was evil the whole time? How do you know that it was I who corrupted the Ramen, and not the other way around?"

Naruto swung once more, and was once again spoon-parried.

"Lies! Ramen would never do that!"

"Everything is evil, foolish boy! The strong do what they like, because they can! And Ramen can turn against you as easily as anything else!"

Tenten watched, bemused. This... This was pretty bizarre. I mean, it could have been a pretty awesome moment... If not for the constant mentioning of Ramen as if it was an intelligent entity. Or if one of the fighters wasn't using a spoon for a weapon.

"People aren't strong when they're doing things like you say! They're strong when they're doing things for their precious people!"

"Naive! You're asking for all you enemies to twist your Ramen against you with that attitude!"

And once more Naruto sprang forward, swinging.

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The others were arriving as Naruto continued to fight. Jiraiya sat writing, editing the dialogue as he went. Mainly he was removing the word Ramen. Placed next to him was Temari, still tied up. He hadn't gotten around to freeing her yet.

Gaara and Tsunade were also beside Jiraiya. Tsunade watched, ready to step in in case Naruto needed help. Gaara just sighed in disappointment at how quickly Naruto had forgotten about his sister. Perhaps he should set his standards lower for her sister's mate, as it seemed she was reaching too high with her first choice?

Hinata, Sakura, and Sasuke had also just arrived, Hinata and Sakura cheering Naruto on with wildly varying degrees of volume (and happily noting that Naruto wasn't currently paying any attention to Tenten, conveniently ignoring the fact he was locked in mortal combat with some kind of psycho with a spoon), whereas Sasuke was stoicly nodding his approval at Naruto's act as an Avenger. Maybe Naruto would stop whining about Sasuke getting all in his Avenger moods whenever he thought about Itachi, now?

After another round of being shut down by a spoon, dialogue resumed.

"Naruto... Your love of the Ramen is a weakness! Its a vulnerability that Konoha will never remove from you! Instead of putting you in control of the Ramen... They will only let the Ramen control you, and keep you weak!"

"I'm... I'm not weak! I am strong! I'm strong, and I'll keep on getting stronger, to keep all my friends safe! And I'll become strong enough to become Hokage to protect everyone! And I know that I'll master the Ramen, 'tebayo!"

"Did anyone in Konoha want to train you before?! Why would that change now? They aren't willing to let you become strong... For fear of IT. But I... I can teach you! Come with me, and we can rule the Shinobi World as master and apprentice! I'll train you to become the greatest ninja ever! And all the Ramen in the world will be yours to eat!"

Naruto paled. Naruto knew that more people seemed to like him these days, and that even the civilians who used to give him the stink-eye acted like they didn't hate him as much anymore. But... The worry was still there, that maybe whatever caused the change would go away, and all of his hard work at getting acknowledged would disappear. Ruling over the Shinobi World even did have some appeal to Naruto. 'It would be like being the Super-Kage, or something...'

More worrisome, the thought that anyone could turn his Ramen against him... That was a scary thought. Would Konoha train him against that? Or would they not bother? It was a terrifying thought, to constantly have to be afraid his Ramen would betray him.

Naruto shook his head. No! He couldn't think like that! Konoha was a good place, and his precious people would ensure that such an act would never, could never happen again! Old Man Ichiraku was above such base deception!

"Never! I'd never let myself be trained by one so evil! You defile the good name of Ramen- Oh my god, look over there!"

Tobi reflexively turned to face the direction Naruto had pointed, before grimacing in shame for falling for such a ruse. Just as Tobi looked away, Naruto smacked him in the side with Samehada as hard as he could.

Surprisingly, Tobi was not broken in half. Nor was he cut, bleeding, or anything to indicate damage.

However, out of sheer dumb luck Naruto had managed to hit Tobi directly on his funny bone, causing him to drop his Spoon... Which Naruto snatched as quick as he could.

"Hah! You fell for my Surprise-Sword-Swipe jutsu! Now you'll pay!"

Gaara silently cursed Naruto for stealing his new technique before he even got a chance to employ it.

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It may surprise some that Naruto would even consider Tobi's offer. One has to remember what it means to be Uzumaki Naruto to explain that answer.

First, being Super-Kage over the world would pretty much make him the coolest ninja by default. I mean, really, who could compete with THAT? Just imagine how awesome his hat would be! Heck, he'd probably even have a cape, too! All the other Kage's would be so gosh dern jealous...

The other reason is the Naruto aspect running the early part of the fight. Kyuubi-Naruto didn't come out to play a lot, but the terrible betrayal and dastardly trickery perpetrated by Tobi and the Ramen brought him into play.

Kyuubi-Naruto, fortunately, is not an evil entity. As a general principle, none of him are. They can be tricky, mischievous buggers, but they don't usually have the urge to kick babies or eat midgets.

The obvious exception, of course, is Evil Naruto, who is rather disliked by the rest of his persona for the fact he always smells like half-eaten midget.

No, Kyuubi-Naruto was a rather new fragment, that appeared the day Naruto learned about the Kyuubi within. He didn't interact much in the meetings- In point of fact, he usually sat under the table that Hokage-Naruto presided at, hiding under the tablecloth. He figured it was only fair since the Kyuubi was locked up in a seal and couldn't take part, he probably shouldn't take part either.

But when Tobi tricked him with ramen... Kyuubi-Naruto flipped the table over in his haste to make chase. Luckily, no one had noticed Naruto's eyes flashing red as he began to pursue.

So when Tobi began to speak, he was speaking to one of the generally more evil and amoral Naruto's he could. Unfortunately, making Naruto ponder such thoughts allowed his mind to calm back down a bit, and get everything back under control.

'But still... That hat would probably look AWESOME!'

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Seeing the tide of battle shift, Tsunade reached out and jerked Jiraiya to his feet, pulling him forward as she stepped out on the field behind Naruto.

Tobi was furious at the loss of the Spoon, but not to the point of being enraged. He could see that the two remaining Sannin were no longer content with him fighting just the boy, so now was probably a good time for a strategic withdrawal.

"You may have won this round, but know that I won't give up on you so quickly! If you ever want to fully control the Ninetails, you'll have to come to me! You'll never be able to be strong, much less the Hokage, with that kind of weakness. And without full mastery of it, you'll never be able to be able to trust in the Ramen again! Muwahahaahahaha!"

Tobi's maniacle cackle lasted a few seconds, before he realized that most of the children were staring at him with wide, confused eyes.

"What? Don't you all know that you need special training to fully control a biju?"

Crickets.

The various genin just gaped, putting together what the strange masked man was saying.

"Errr... They didn't know? Oh jeez, you'd think that's something people would know about, right? I mean, how do you hide the fact that you have the strongest demon around sealed into your stomach? Didn't the absurd amount of chakra he had tip you off? The fact that he can make thousands upon thousands of Kage Bunshin never seemed strange?"

Still silence.

"I... Wow, this is awkward. Um, I'm just going to be going now... Do remember my offer, Naruto... You're going to need it!"

With that, Tobi Shunshined over to Kisame, grabbed his unconscious body, then the two of them disappeared.

Everyone left behind was standing about, confused. Naruto stood in the clearing, leaning on Samehada in his right hand, and holding Tobi's Spoon in his left. Naruto didn't know what to think. He had always planned on telling his friends eventually about the Kyuubi and all... But it's not something you can just talk about!

Tenten was, unsurprisingly, the first to act. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense, what that crazy spoon-wielding freak had said. Naruto did have rather ridiculous chakra reserves, didn't he?

But nothing Tenten had ever seen had indicated anything at all to her that Naruto WAS the demon. She knew about Jinchuuriki, of course, what with Gaara being out and about... And Naruto sure didn't act nearly that crazy. Naruto was still Naruto, and that was that.

So, Tenten rushed over to him, gripping his left arm, asking him if he was OK. Naruto turned to her, smiling weakly, looked her in the eyes, searching for what she was thinking. Naruto's smile grew when he could detect no hostility, no falseness in her. He dropped the two magnificent weapons he was holding, and pulled Tenten into a hug.

Hinata and Sakura had reached the same conclusions that Tenten had. Seeing Naruto hug Tenten pulled them out of their dazed stupor, and both rushed over to assure Naruto that they still lov-believed in him. Frankly, Sakura was surprised she had never guessed something was up with Naruto's reserves before. And Hinata understood now why everyone had always looked on at Naruto so hatefully.

Sasuke was praising the lord that it was apparently just the Kyuubi that was causing Itachi to flee from Naruto, not his ridiculous orange outfits.

Gaara stood silently, next to his still-bound sister. 'It seems my sister has already lost her fight for Uzumaki... I'm sure she'll be most disappointed when I inform her that she should stop pursuing him, but what's done is done.'

Temari still continued to squirm about, confused both at how no one had bothered to help her, and how absurdly well tied the ropes were that she still couldn't escape them.

Tsunade d'awwwed, and nudged Jiraiya in the ribs. He glanced at her, before bending down to pick up and tuck away all his notes.

"When you get around to finishing that book... I think 'Icha Icha Swordplay' would make a much better name then just 'swords'."

"We need to get out of here now! Back to Konoha we go!"

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In the Secret Akatsuki lair of dastardliness and evilitude, an even secreter meeting took place.

"Madara, you're telling me you had the Ninetails captured... And you let him go? Why?!"

Tobi paced back and forth in front of Pain and Konan, running the fight over in his head to see if their was anything that he missed.

"Pain... Have you ever even looked at the seal that the Kyuubi-brat has?"

"Obviously not... When would I have had the time to do so?"

"Well, at the start of the fight he was drawing on the Kyuubi chakra, and gave me a good look at the seal on his stomach... It was the most absurd seal I've ever seen! I don't think its actually possible to extract the Ninetails and live through the process. It's got so many safeguards that I doubt both of us working in concert could survive the unsealing, and the resulting fight and capture of Kyuubi!"

Pain stared as Tobi continued to rant and wave his arms about. 'It can't be that bad...'

"I didn't get a good look at all of it, but not only would removing the seal cause the boy to actually turn into some crazy fox thingy as it went on... But there was one part of it that looked like if you pulled off too much of the seal, the freakin Yondaime himself would somehow appear and stop you! How the hell do you do that?"

"You... got all of that from looking at the seal once?"

"Pain, remember that you aren't the only one with a crazy doujutsu here..."

Pain rolled his eyes at that. As if Madara could go five minutes without mentioning his Sharingan, and how not only did he reach the highest level... But he went beyond that into an even more ridiculous level!

"Anyway, my plan to capture all the biju obviously won't work now... And I was so looking forward to catching them all... At least I can still get the Sandslash, Persian, and Lapras easily..."

Tobi wandered out of the meeting, muttering to himself.

Leaving Pain and Konan to stare at each other in confusion.

"What... What was he talking about at the end there?"

"I think some things are better left off to mystery. No, our bigger concern here now is how to succeed in our goals without the power of the Kyuubi..."

Author's Notes: The initial Pokemon reference was subtle, but it was there : ).

Anywayz, Kisame's sword issue has been revealed. I believe it was Armedlord at TFF who guessed it correctly a while back (He didn't want to lose his sword because then he'd have to deal with his crazy mom). Naruto also has Tobi's Spoon. He's also seen said spoon completely pwn Kisame's sword, so he may try to figure out what made it so special. The Pot and Spoon is a running joke of mine. If you're confused, at this point it's your own damn fault.

Tobi's evil plan to convert Naruto (because he realized the Ninetails itself was uncapturable) to his side got sidelined into something about Ramen, because thats all Naruto could talk about. The specific Biju that Tobi referenced should be obvious, as they, aside from the 8-Tailed-Pantyhose Taro that is Kirabe, are the only ones we've seen.

I also lied to Griff-Dawg, too, who had PM'd me a few days ago asking for when my next update was, and I had told him May. Sorry for lying!


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"OK, Hidan, I've got the perimeter defenses mapped out, with a rough estimate of their patrol schedule. Did your reconnaissance turn up where the kid is in town?"

"No... All the women I talked to were eager to talk about the Ninetails for some reason, but none knew where he was... Stupid whores, trying to chat me up even after I told them I was a priest."

"Yeah, well, that's what you get for not wearing a shirt."

Hidan and Kakuzu were hiding outside the village, thanking the gods that Tobi hadn't seen fit to appear from nowhere and screw up their plans yet. Unfortunately, while Kakuzu was sure he could get in without alerting anyone, Hidan's recon had shown no sign of the Kyuubi brat. What an idiot… He hadn't even bothered with a disguise. He just took off his cloak, and wandered into town.

"Well, we just might have to wait a little longer- Hold on, people are coming!"

Both men, who had been standing beneath a tree branch talking, dove into nearby bushes, which somehow managed to completely hide them.

Only to be trampled upon by Naruto and friends returning from their rescue mission.

Sadly, the troupe of ninjas didn't even notice the two men they ran over in their haste to make it home.

A few minutes after they passed, a groan was heard.

"Fucking goddamn motherfuckers... I'm going to kill them so hard, that they'll cry blood out of their hair when Jashin takes them!"

"Well, now at least we know the Ninetails is in town... We just need an opportune moment."

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The group returning to Konoha had been not-so-strangely silent during the trip back.

The revelation of Naruto's third-class-passenger was quite the doozy.

Sasuke, at first relieved that Itachi wasn't terrified of something lame like orange jumpsuits, terrible catch phrases or ramen, had then started thinking of the implications of Naruto's pet biju. It just wasn't fair! How can one compete with a guy who has a freaking energizer bunny keeping him charged up no matter what crazy jutsus he might attempt? Sasuke knew very well that the biju were beings of chakra, and if Naruto could draw upon the Kyuubi, it meant that Naruto could draw upon neigh unlimited chakra.

And that kind of advantage was just crazy. Sasuke conveniently forgot his own personal hax-ingan, but a proper Avenger never let the truth get in between him and his angsty brooding.

Hinata... Revelation had hit her like a hammer. This was why everyone ignored Naruto! This was why no one acknowledged him! If he could stand up, knowing everyone hated him for something that wasn't even an accident of birth, but merely really crappy luck... Why couldn't she stand up for what she believed in, too?

This was why she loved him! He was so unlike her, so much what she wished she could be... Heck, he was a hero from the day he was born! People in the village shouldn't be hating him... They should be loving him, cherishing him, thanking him.

And Hinata was willing to shoulder her share of that burden, no problem.

That thought, and the thought that it led to, caused Hinata to stumble into Sakura, who had herself hit upon a revelation.

Sakura knew Naruto. Out of all the many people that Naruto knew, few were as well versed in Narutology as she. She knew what he liked, his motivations, his passions... She knew _him_.

And she had never seen this coming.

Oh, sure, there were strange things about Naruto. He pulled off the absurd with ease, surprising everyone. But Sakura had just presumed that, like Sasuke, he had some sort of bloodline. Some secret bloodline of awesome that enabled him to pull off the crazy victories he had.

But to be a jinchuriki... To be like Gaara?

She didn't even know Jinchuuriki could be sane. After all, the only one she knew of repeatedly tried to kill her, while mumbling and moaning about gorging on her blood. That Naruto could have turned out in any way like the way Gaara had was disturbing.

But he hadn't. He could have been a monster, a monstrously monstrous monster of monster proportions, and no one would have been surprised. No one would have blamed him. Heck, its what most people probably expected, actually. It certainly explained a lot of the attitudes she'd seen directed towards him.

One of the most attractive points of Sasuke had been his angsty image, that he had some kind of dark past that made him be coldly angry. Sakura had always imagined that she could be the one to make him happy, to get him over his trauma and move him past the brooding angst. Everyone wants to be needed, and there was no denying that Sasuke needed help… just perhaps debate on who got to give him that help tended to annoy the boy more then was fair.

Suddenly, Naruto had shot out onto the scene, with other girls pointing out to her how attractive of a boyfriend he could be, how strong and how caring. And now? Now he had the ULTIMATE angsty background! Heck, the only way that could make it more depressing if it had been his own family member who had put the Kyuubi into him! Or if the Yondaime had presumed that the village would see him as a hero. Or if the presence of the beast caused an evil organization to hunt him down to steal it out of him for their own diabolical reasons...

Oh, irony.

Either way, everything she had imagined (aside from straight up bishounen good looks) being attractive about Sasuke could be found in Naruto, solidifying in her mind her feelings about the boy. And she wouldn't have to do nearly the amount of work to get him to ALLOW her to help him as she would with Sasuke.

As Sakura paused at that, allowing Hinata to stumble into her, Tenten was pondering the same situation.

It was a lot to take in. Her boyfriend (or whatever he was) had the Kyuubi riding in his tummy? Trying to imagine it led her to nearly laugh aloud, imaging Naruto having a kangaroo-style pouch with a mini-Kyuubi head popping out.

Whatever it meant for Naruto, containing a biju... It didn't bother her. It didn't worry her. Naruto hadn't done anything that was psychotically evil yet, though he did have some rather odd personality quirks. If all she had to worry about was him obsessing over Ramen, then, well, it didn't really matter.

Naruto... He was just glad that it was finally out in the open.

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"What... What happened?"

Eyes opening slowly, the world blurred into focus. Kisame was trying to remember where he was, what he was doing, what had happened-

My. God.

Kisame frantically looked around the room, hoping this was some kind of horrible, horrible nightmare, that maybe his sword would be right where it should be, patting about the bed, frenzied movements hoping to find SOMETHING-

A note?

Kisame found a note placed right below his hand, and he prayed to all the fishy gods he held dear that it would be good news-

"No, the kid DOES have your sword. Too bad, eh?"

-Tobi

Three grunts had been moving boxes in a hallway near Kisame's room.

They weren't the only ones who heard him bellow.

"!'

They were, however, the first three who died as Kisame killed them almost absent-mindedly in his rush to the nearest exit.

They weren't the last.

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"Naruto, didn't you just eat ramen? Not even counting the ramen you ate at the lake, but weren't you eating ramen before we left, too?"

"Tenten... I, I need to make sure everything is ok. If that _bastard_ could taint Ramen once, who knows if he could do it again? I have to make sure!"

"Well, uhh, I mean, I guess if that's important to you, we could stop by-"

"Then afterward we can go look at shoes or something, and you can tell me about the different kinds, right?"

Tenten goggled a bit at that, because it seemed to be an odd thing to want to do. But her confusion slowly bloomed into a grin seeing Naruto's nervous smile, scratching the back of his head as if he wasn't sure if he had said the right thing. Sure, it seemed weird, but he was trying to reach out to do something else with her, something he thought she'd like.

'That's so sweet of him!'

The scene may have progressed further along those lines if the two had been alone.

But both Sakura and Hinata were there.

And while Hinata's face instantly flushed, and her expression swapped rapidly between mildly annoyed and blushing lightly (or, for more normal people, enraged and aroused), it was not her personality type to step forward on her own and fight for her man.

But Sakura had no such problems. She was in fact used to having to fight for her man, down to out and out catfights as the situation demanded.

And she was feeling more then a little upset over how this harpy was trying to seduce Naruto right in front of her!

Thus, with all the subtlety of a bright orange ninja jumpsuit, Sakura pushed forward and latched onto one of Naruto's arms.

"But Naruto, it's been so long since you've trained with your team. Don't you want to train with _your team_? We've been missing you so much, haven't we, Sasuke?"

Sasuke flinched, knowing that there was definitely a 'right' answer to this question, but he wasn't sure he could compromise his own manliness enough to give it.

"Not in the least, no. It's been incredibly peace- I mean, uhh, yes, Naruto. I have, uhh... Yeah. What she said."

'Damnit, it turns out I can.'

Sasuke shuddered again, once more picturing Sakura baring down on him with an oversized mallet, ready to dispense female justice for his failure to cooperate.

Though ecstatic, Naruto was getting a tad weirded out. Sakura was practically hugging him! But why? This behavior wasn't normal in the least.

Especially not for Sasuke. Then again, Naruto saw the glare Sakura leveled at him... It was a glare he himself was incredibly familiar with. The one that always made him think Sakura was planning on trying to uppercut him into low orbit.

This was _not_ normal.

Hinata, seeing the competition moving to edge her out, gracefully shuffled forward to stand on his other side, lightly grasping his elbow and pulling his arm to her chest.

"But... Naruto-kun, you said y-you wanted to test the ramen... I still have my s-special ramen from before..."

Noodles poured into a vodka broth. Yum.

Again, Naruto looked at the lady talking to him. Again, this seemed awfully out of character. He'd 'known' Hinata for years... And she'd only talked to him like two or three times before. She always avoided him, and was always blushing and poking her fingers together.

Now she was getting into fights with Sakura, and inviting him over to her house? Not that he'd mind visiting Hiashi (He had to warn the man about the evil Tobi and his Ramen defiling ways!), but he knew eating at the Hyuuga mansion was something that people like him weren't customarily invited to do.

He'd known that recently, the girls around him hadn't been acting normal. But he had kept on putting off asking why.

Well, now seemed to be as good a time as any to figure out what was going on.

"Why is everyone acting so different lately?"

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Enough. Was. Enough.

There was a time to peaceably work things out. There was a time to be polite and cordial, and there was a time to just sit back and do as you're told.

Now was no longer such a time.

Now was a time for killing. And maiming. Random death and destruction. Death-by-Chocolate Ice Cream.

Kisame's rampage had reached the exit of the building. The death toll had reached over 30, mainly aides and grunt workers but also some random rain ninja who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Waiting for him at the exit, though, were real adversaries. Kisame out and out ignored Pein and Konan on seeing the third person standing there with them. Even as Pein opened his mouth to rebuke, threaten, warn, just say something to Kisame, Kisame began to shout.

"YOU! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"

Standing unconcerned, Tobi almost mockingly pointed at himself.

"Me? But I'm a good boy-urk!"

Now Pein was quieted not by someone shouting over him, but out of confusion. How the heck had Kisame even touched Tobi? That space-time ninjutsu of his should have stopped that, right?

"YOU LISTEN TO ME! IF I HAD MORE TIME RIGHT NOW, I'D KILL YOU! I'D KILL YOU SLOWLY! I'D CUT OFF YOUR LEGS AT THE SHIN! I'D FLAY THE SKIN OFF YOUR ARMS, THEN SLOW ROAST THEM OVER AN OPEN FIRE! I'D STAB OUT YOUR EYEBALLS AND USE THEM TO CHOKE YOU! I'D RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND SHIT DOWN YOUR THROAT!"

All the while, he was shaking Tobi around by the neck like a rag doll. Tobi could do naught more then struggle fruitlessly in the crazy fish man's hands, unable to break out of his grip.

"BUT I DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO DRAW IT OUT THE WAY YOU DESERVE! I NEED TO GET MY SWORD BACK, AND I NEED IT NOW! MY... MY MOM IS GOING TO BE HERE ANY DAY NOW, AND IF I DON'T HAVE THAT DAMN SWORD, I'LL NEVER HEAR THE END OF IT! SO HELP ME GOD, IF I DON'T HAVE THAT SWORD HERE SAFE AND SOUND BY THE TIME SHE ARRIVES, I'M GOING TO 'TIME-SPACE' NINJUTSU BACK TO WHEN YOU WERE A LITTLE KID, AND I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOUR PARENTS! HELL, I'LL EVEN KILL YOUR GODDAMN DOG!"

With that, Kisame hurled the supposed strongest ninja in the world to the side, and began his mad dash towards Konoha.

Tobi shakily stood back up, cracking his neck back and forth, and shuffled back to where the other two stood.

Konan had to ask. "Madara, how did he even touch you?"

Tobi sighed. He flexed his arms and shoulders again, cracking a few joints, as if to shake off what just happened to him. It wasn't that unfamiliar, to be honest. Heck, it was one of the reasons he'd gone so far with creating that untouchable jutsu of his. However, he'd been far too late in actually attempting to use it, and had grossly underestimated just how upset Kisame had been in the first place.

No, now that he thought about it, even if he had been prepared, he wouldn't have been able to avoid what had just happened.

"There are few things more powerful in this world then true righteous anger, Konan. It can let anything happen from a little girl drop-kicking a man into the stratosphere, to being able to kill even the strongest opponents."

It was a truly powerful force, one that had both aided and screwed him over in his many years. When he was younger, and far more passionate, he had been able to tap that inner core of angst and rage that most every Uchiha possessed. But as he got older and more cynical (and crazy), it seemed that more and more often he inspired that rage into other people without even trying.

Heck, it was one of the reasons he had gone so far with his 'Tobi' façade. It was harder to reach that level of pissed-off at the comedic relief, instead usually stalling out at merely slapstick levels of violence. And while that could send you into exaggerated violence as well, it was never really that painful, he had found.

Of course, as proven just now, even that didn't protect you if the person was provoked and pissed off enough.

"The thing, though, is that 'true righteous anger' is something incredibly subjective. For one person, it could be over something as complex as recovering the object of your families heritage before your mother found out you lost it and nagged and guilt-tripped you about it forever. For others, it could be something as simple as some pervert peeping on you in the baths. Heck, if you felt strongly enough about it, you could probably destroy the world over, like Kisame said, someone killing your dog."

"... Chibi..."

Konan sighed and Tobi looked on confused, as the Great Pein, bearer of the Rinnigan and all-around scary badass, broke out in emo, emo tears.

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"I mean, I don't mind that everyone seems to like me more, but what the heck is going on?"

All 3 girls stared in almost disbelief at Naruto. He couldn't be THAT dense, could he?

Sakura shook her head. Of course he could. It was part of his charm.

"Well, Naruto, after you, ahem, starting being with me, these girls realized what they had missed out on, realized how special you were, and belatedly began putting the moves on you."

Tenten tried to be delicate about it. She realized that Sakura was Naruto's friend as much as Hinata was his stalker. He cared about them, and didn't want to make it seem as if she didn't like them herself. Making a guy chose between you and their friends was always a bad idea, the soap operas she'd seen had taught her. Even if those 'friends' were trying to mac on her man.

"Huh-"

"You mean when you began seducing him, you skank! I don't know what you did to try to take Naruto for yourself, but he was in love with me long before you ever came around!"

"Wha-"

"P-Please, Sakura... You always hated him for years, treating Naruto-kun so poorly. I've lo-liked him for years, even while you were infatuated with Uchiha-san. I've cared longer then you ever have."

"Really-"

"Look, girls, whatever the past may have been, its over and done with. You had your chance, and Naruto made his own choices. If you liked him as much as you say you do, you'd go along with what he wants!"

Naruto stood in the middle of the three girls, at the center of a triangle of imminent violence. Naruto stood confused out of his mind, in the center of what could turn out to be a fight of epic clothes-ripping proportions.

He had no clue what to do.

But Sasuke did. He knew exactly what to do in a situation like this.

He ran the fuck out of there. And after turning three corners, he leaped to the roof-tops, and hid up on a nearby building to watch the ensuing girl-on-girl violence. But intelligently, his first thoughts were to get the fuck out of dodge.

All three girls paused a moment to stare at the literal dust cloud that was all that remained of the supposed best genin of his class.

And in that moment of distraction, Jiraiya swooped in, grabbed, Naruto, and teleported out with him.

The standoff wavered, with all three girls looking more confused then angry at what had just happened. Then a voice, suspiciously sounding like Jiraiya, wafted down from above.

"Well, are you just going to take what she just said? Really? Go down without a fight?"

Tenten bristled a bit, assuming that whatever voyeur was watching was referring what she said.

Unfortunately for her, that's what Hinata assumed the person meant, too.

And unfortunately for Hinata, Sakura assumed it was referring to what Hinata had just said about her.

"Mind your own business, jerk-urk!"

Before Tenten could finish yelling at whoever, both Hinata and Sakura defaulted back to their previous cat fighting mindset, and pounced.

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"OK, Hidan, it's nearly time for the guard shift to change. Three minutes after the patrol passes this location, we can take the chakra suppressant pills to temporarily hide our presence, sneak in under the wall, and get to the safe house you mapped out earlier. Then we can- Hold it, someone's coming through again."

This time, to avoid being trampled on, both ninja hopped up into the dense foliage of the tree they were standing beneath, confident that they would both not been, and would not be stepped on.

They did not count on the fact that Kisame in a rage stopped for no man.

Or tree.

Or wall.

Kisame was literally just mowing through whatever got in his way, be it tree or otherwise, and tossing it to the side if he didn't destroy it outright.

And let me tell you, being stuck in a tree that was being slammed into and through a wall was NOT fun.

"Screw actually trying to plan this out, apparently ninja's these days don't even need to bother with stealth or anything!"

"Well, we at least don't need to wait for shift change now, do we?"

Author's Notes: If you are confused about Pein's crying, I refer you to the chapters of Pein's backstory where he flat out tells us the final straw that made him decide to go all DESTROYER on the world was because his little dog got killed because he decided to bring it next to a battlefield. If you want a time frame for when I wrote most of this, that chapter had just come out, so this has been sitting around for a while.

It's been a damn long time. I truly didn't think I'd ever post more of this, and had actually forgotten for a long time that I had written most of this chapter at all until I was scrolling though my documents and saw it.

I dunno if the next chapter will come out soon. The next chapter will probably be the last, or maybe there will be one more chapter after that. I dunno. I shoulda actually story boarded this out instead of half assing it.

I hope it came out decent, at least.


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